Methodology for Estimating the Effect of Traffic Flow Management on Fuel Consumption and CO 2 Production: A Case Study of Celje, Slovenia

The manuscript discusses the investigation of vehicle flow in a predesignated junction by an appropriate traffic flow management with an effort to minimize fuel consumption, the production of CO 2 , an essential greenhouse gas (hereinafter referred to as GHG), and related transport costs. The particular research study was undertaken in a frequented junction in the city of Celje, located in the eastern part of Slovenia. The results obtained summarize data on consumed fuel and produced CO 2 amounts depending on the type of vehicle, traffic flow mixture, traffic light signal plan, and actual vehicle velocity. These values were calculated separately for three different conditions of traffic flow management. Amounts of fuel consumed were experimentally investigated in real traffic situations, whereas CO 2 production was calculated by applying the actual European standard entitled EN 16258:2012 associated with a guideline for measuring emission values, as well as by examining specific traffic flow parameters. The key objective of the manuscript is to present multiple scenarios towards striving to minimize environmental impacts and improve transport operation’s economic consequences when implementing proper traffic flow management. As for crucial findings, we quantified fuel consumption and CO 2 emissions based on real data on the number and type of vehicles crossing the examined intersection and traffic light switching intervals. The results show that most of the CO 2 was produced while waiting and in the accelerating phase in front of traffic lights, whereby in the running phase through the intersection, significantly less fuel was used. This study represents a mosaic fragment of research addressing endeavors to reduce CO 2 production in urban transport. Following the experiments conducted, we can see a notable contribution towards reducing CO 2 production with known and tested interventions in the existing transport infrastructure. A procedure embracing individual research steps may be deemed as an approach methodology dealing with traffic flow management with an aim to decrease the environmental and economic impacts of traffic and transport operation; this is where the novelty of the research lies.