Urban air pollution is certainly a direct function of the consistency of flows of motor vehicles travelling through each zone of a city, of the geometry of buildings at the boundary of streets where conditions effect the dispersive fluid dynamics of exhaust gases and, of course, of meteoclimatic features of various zones that form the whole urban area. The planners of the "Plan of Urban Traffic" (PUT) actually take into account the sole possibility of increasing the average speed of the run of traffic flow but they do not consider the health hazard for city dwellers that may be caused by PUT as regards air pollution coming from exhaust pipes, especially in a supersaturated urban area. To achieve a good PUT one needs to take into account both the solution of traffic problems and the control of health hazards caused by air pollution. To this aim, this paper shows some results achieved by application and testing of MISKAM fluid dynamic code used as the key to forecasting concentrations of polluting gases in a large area of Catania city (Italy) marked by very large flows of motor vehicles throughout the day. The knowledge of forecasted air pollution, zone by zone, could guide the planners to the best choices to achieve both goals: to increase average speed and to avoid health hazards. For the covering abstract see ITRD E128680.
Abstract