LOCAL TRANSPORT AND POLLUTION

Urban pollution due to transport activities in Piatra Neamt town

 

By, Ana-Maria Ruscanu, Maria Pandelea and Manuela Bodnar

Directed by Teacher, Dumitru Letos

 

In the local plan of Piatra Neamt municipality, the road transport holds the absolute monopoly in urban traffic of passengers and goods, in some cases there aren't other alternative in relations with the outside, but the road is competing with the railway transport on the axis Bacău-Bicaz. The total length of urban network of the roads is 151 km. The length of modernized streets is about 123 km, which represents 81.45% of the total length of the road network.

Table 1 The auto park of the town

                                Sources: Local municipality

 

The contribution of local passenger transport to urban pollution

In a detailed analysis of urban transport of passengers in correlation with auto park at the level of 2009, numerical ratio between transport of passengers with public means and transport with own car is 1/1. From the approximately 62,000 persons, who participate daily at urban transport of passengers, they mean about 60% of all inhabitants, where half of them use public transport and the other half use their own cars.

The auto park of the town at the level of 2009 is impressive (Table 1), only the number of cars per number of inhabitants would mean 1 car to approx. 4,19 people. In the same year, the percentage of the cars represents 91% of total autovehicles.

Besides 62,000 persons with the residence in the rown who travel daily by car in urban areas there are about 3,500 persons from neighboring localities or nearly who transit the town by public means and other 3000 persons from neighboring localities who transit by their own cars. So, there are about 70.000 persons who travel daily into the urban areas of the municipality Piatra Neamt with various means of transport. That means on the road network there run about 30,000 autovehicles daily. In terms of quantitative and qualitative, the development level of urban passenger transport is a good one, which offer a good service to people interests.

Local utility transport contribution to urban pollution

            Commercial transport holds about 9% in urban fleet composition, of which 6% is light commercial vehicles (under 3.5 t) and 3% heavy commercial vehicles (over 3.5 t). In terms of tonnage transport fleet holds 32% of the total tonnage of the urban fleet and therefore has an increased contribution in the emission of gases and specific particles in urban atmosphere. Besides these utility vehicles, the city is still monthly transited by a number of machines tools at least equal to that existing in its own fleet utility. Based on the data above, we notice a good level of utilitarian services for the town.

 

The impact of the transport on the environment

Urban pollution due to road transport

As the industry has a low level, urban transport is the main source of urban pollution in various forms: gas emissions, emissions of particles in suspension (powders), (PM10), noise, etc..

Only a small segment of urban transport is an ecological one (electric trolleybuses) which currently holds 28.5% of the active fleet for public transport, this transport model can be upgraded and extended as a viable model for sustainable development of the municipality.

CO2 emissions from transport in the total CO2 emissions decreased from year to year, from 30.6% in 2008 to 26.4% in 2009 while the fleet has increased a lot, why reduce emissions from the transport fleet renewal is due by dropping highly polluting old cars and buying new cars that respects the European emission standards.

Within the transport CO2 emissions calculated according to tonnage and fitting in the emission standards, there detaches the passenger transport with 55.4% in 2008 and 67.6% in 2009 (NT APM), the percentage increase between the two years being due to increase the number of newly registered passenger cars (with 2837 cars under DTI Piatra Neamt), while the CO2 emissions from transport utility come down from 44.6% in 2008 to 32.4% in 2009.

Average emission concentration from PM10 (dusts in suspension) from transport, exceed MAQ (CMA) for 24 hours according to Official Normative No. 592 since 25th June 2002 (50 µg/m³), reaching in monitored area (at the Help Stop, on belt road Dimitrie Leonida) at 68,42 µg/m³  in 2008 (yearly average for 24 hours) and 64,39 µg/m³ in 2009 (yearly average for 24 hours).Surpensions frequency looking the register of PM10 in 24 hours resulted from transport (CMA in 24 hours) got to 65,60% in 2008 and to 60,78% in 2009 for the same monitored area, proving the high level of pollution in the road belt where traffic proportion of heavy transport is very high (APM NT ).

The level of noise pollution is monitored periodically by APM NT stations, located on principal thoroughfare, in the main roads and crossings and in areas with reduced permissible limit of noise (schools, parks, hospitals, institutions, etc.). In Piatra Neamt town there exist 17 points for observation and noise monitoring, as: 8 crossings, Central Park (inside and limit), Centarl Market (inside and limit), second area institutions for education (inside and limit), Municipal Stadium, where there are recorded medium values for equivalent noise level L_Aeq (dBA). The average for the town is about 70 dB (A), depending on location and specificity looking the permissible limit, there exist many exceedings of limit surpensions as: Petrodava crossing, Hospital crossing, Pietricica crossing, regiment crossing where permissible limit is 70 dB (A), but recorded values for Central Park area exceed the limit of 45 dB (A) (outside limit), so that the recorded values are to 60 dB (A). In other areas  recordered values are almost to permissible limit values as in: Unic crossing, Orion crossing, Hospital inside, etc.

The frequency of limit exceeding for noise pollution in the city is 68% (APM 2009). Taking into account recent European standard regarding the maximum permissible is 50 dB (A), but the results exceed  in almost the entire town.

The urban pollution level owed to the transport is high almost in the whole town and its specific effects generate a moderate negative impact upon the local environment and upon the population life.