An inexpensive method to estimate CO and NOx emissions from mobile sources

CO and NOx measurements from mobile sources at two urban locations in Córdoba City, Argentina, were used to develop a very simple method to estimate emission from these sources. This development was possible because primary urban air pollution in Córdoba comes mostly from mobile sources and because a field measurement campaign was conducted by the city government during 1995–1996 that has allowed us to have a complete and valuable data bank. Air concentrations of CO, NOx as well as physical, and meteorological variables were measured at two urban sites with two monitoring stations. We compared the measured CO and NOx air concentration data with the predictions of a method that uses regression analysis to estimate the emission factor from the mobile sources. The agreement is good, considering the simplicity of the approach.