Abstract
Vehicle occupant exposure to volatile organic compounds (VOCs) continues to be the subject of active research because of higher levels of VOCs in vehicles than in the surrounding ambient atmosphere and because of potential health risk. This study identified in-auto and in-bus exposures to 6 selected aromatic VOCs during rush-hour driving. A bus service route was selected to include an urban route (Taegu) and a suburban route (Hayang-Up) to satisfy the specified criteria of this study. The most abundant VOC concentration measured in this study was toluene. In-vehicle target Voc concentrations of the urban route were significantly different from those of the suburban segment. On the sum of average of the target VOCs, in-auto VOC concentration was about 1.5 times higher than in-bus VOC concentration. Based on the sum of average, in-automobile target VOC concentrations of this study were within the range of previous studies conducted in several cities of the United States, while in-bus VOC concentrations of this study were much lower than those of Taipei in Taiwan. In-vehicle VOC concentrations of present study significantly varied with sampling days, while they did not varied with driving period.