• Asian Journal of Atmospheric Environment
• /
• v.1 no.1
• /
• pp.1-8
• /
• 2007

Vehicle exhaust is a dominant source of air pollutants in urban areas. Since people are easily exposed to vehicle exhaust particles while driving a car and/or traveling via public transportation, air pollution near traffic has been extensively studied in developed countries. In this paper, investigations on vehicle-related fine particulate air pollution at roadsides and on roads in Seoul, Korea were reviewed to understand air pollution near traffic. Comparison of $PM_{10}$ concentrations in Seoul showed that roadside air is more contaminated than urban air, implying that exposure levels near vehicular emissions are more critical to sensitive persons. Concentrations of ultrafine particles and BC (black carbon) at roadsides of Seoul fluctuate highly for short durations, responding to traffic situations. Diurnal variations of ultrafine particles and BC concentrations at roadsides seem to be affected by traffic volume, mixing layer height, and wind speed. Concentrations of ultrafine particles and BC decrease as distance from the road increases due to dilution during transport. On-road air pollution seems to be more severe than roadside air pollution in Seoul. Since nearby traffic air pollution has not been well understood in Seoul, further studies including various vehicular air pollutants and representative locations are needed.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
• /
• v.11 no.1
• /
• pp.59-77
• /
• 2008

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of traffic-related air pollution on the urban population in the Metropolitan Seoul area. In particular, this study analyzes urban population exposure to traffic-related particulate materials(PM). For the purpose, this study examines the relationships between traffic flows and PM concentration levels during the last fifteen years. Traffic volumes have been decreased significantly in recent year in Seoul, however, PM levels have been declined less compare to traffic volumes. It may be related with the rapid growth in the population and vehicle numbers in Gyenggi, the outskirt of Seoul, where several New Towns have been developed in the middle of 1990's. The spatial pattern of commuting has changed, and thus and travel distances and traffic volumes have increased along the main roads connecting CBDs in Seoul and New Towns consisting of large residential apartment complexes. These changes in traffic flows and travel behaviors cause increasing exposure to traffic-related air pollution for urban population over the Metropolitan Seoul area. GIS techniques are applied to analyze the spatial patterns of traffic flows, population distributions, PM distributions, and passenger flows comprehensively. This study also analyzes real time base traffic flow data and passenger flow data obtained from T-card transaction database applying data mining techniques. This study also attempts to develop a space-time model for assessing journey-time exposure to traffic related air pollutants based on travel passenger frequency distribution function. The results of this study can be used for the implications for sustainable transport systems, public health and transportation policy by reducing urban air pollution and road traffics in the Metropolitan Seoul area.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
• /
• v.15 no.1
• /
• pp.23-33
• /
• 2006

The factor of air pollution in a large industrial city is not only manufactories but also, activities related to trucks. Sihwa National Industrial Complex is located in Siheung City; due to the industries, more diverse activities related to trucks occur in Siheung City than other cities. In particular, the new residential area in Siheung City is close to the industrial complex; so, the damage of this residential area is expected that it would be more serious and vulnerable than other areas. The aim of this study is to analyze influence of the air pollution by a truck in Siheung City. ISCST3 Model and Arc View program were used for this study and Siheung City was divided into 1,000 meter by 1,000 meter grid to analyze. Furthermore, this study suggested two reduction controls of air pollution in Siheung City, and analyzed the results from these reduction managements. The results of the present condition showed that residences located in north of Sihwa Industrial Complex are influenced by air pollution material. Furthermore, air pollution by trucks has affected on the residents which is near the road in Siheung City. Therefore, this study suggested two reduction controls by the Traffic System Management. The first alternative plan is setting the truck traffic limitation zone in the road that is located in south of resident areas and many trucks traffic. Next, the second alternative plan is setting freight truck way on the most traffic road to enter the industrial complex. The reduction effect of the first alternative is good on the residential area. And, the second alternate about freight truck way is divided passenger cars into trucks. Therefore, there are increase of average speed and decrease of average concentration, and spatial reduction effects found in wide areas.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
• /
• v.2 no.2
• /
• pp.31-40
• /
• 1986

Motor vehicle related air pollution has become more serious because of rapid increase of number of cars, specially in the urban area. The increase trend seems to be accelerated, however, the fact is that road conditions, parking facilities and traffic control systems are far behind coping with this situation. In spite of the lack of related basic data, urban transportation planning (UPT) and air pollution dispersion models were applied to predict air pollution level. In standard UPT model, trip generation, distribution, modal split and network assignment were estimated by experimental equations and appropriate models. The air pollution level in the central business area was believed to be higher and it will increase continuously due to the increase of traffic demand. To meet this situation, air pollution problem should be considered as a part of integrated plannings of urban plans or transportation plans as well as more stringent motor vehicle emission standards, have to be enforced.

• Journal of Korean Society for Geospatial Information Science
• /
• v.8 no.1 s.15
• /
• pp.13-25
• /
• 2000

Road traffic-related environment problems has become now serious problem common in the urban life throughout the world. In this study, a GIS-supported evaluation system has been developed for dealing with the road traffic-related environment problems, especially focusing on air Pollution in the urban areas. The developed system consists lof three essential parts: GIS; traffic-related air pollution simulation model; and the database for potential strategies. In establishing the simulation model, a GIS-supported environment can provide a useful tool for handling a wide range of data characterizing study areas and for preparing more accurate estimation on real locations. Such roles of the GIS-supported system can be helpful to more efficient analysis and more reasonable decision-makings. As a preliminary stage in developing the system, the metropolitan area of Cairo in Egypt was applying into being as a Pilot study to test the Potentiality of the prototype system.

• Journal of KSNVE
• /
• v.7 no.3
• /
• pp.521-529
• /
• 1997

Noise pollution, especially road traffic noise-in terms of population exposure-has become a major problem in Seoul. However, although noise can be sensed directly, it is considered somewhat less important compared to other environmental pollutions. In this study, we chose nine districts in Seoul and distributed a questionnaire containing 23 questions in related to the awareness of noise pollution for 950 people living in Seoul. The results were analyzed according to the citizens' awareness on the whole, age, occupation, and were compared to the actual noise level measured by the Seoul Metropolitan Government. The analysis of the questionnarie show that road traffic noise is considered to be the main source of noise pollution in Seoul. People think that the individual and the Seoul Metropolitan Government are most responsible for the noise reduction in Seoul, but replies only little effort is put into when asked whether one has made any personal effort to reduce noise. We have concluded that noise pollution is not considered a hazardous problem to most Seoul citizens, and that most of them seem to be used to it. Yet, specific noise reduction policies, especially road traffic noise, are expected to take effect as quality of life is pursued due to economic enhancement.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
• /
• 1996.10a
• /
• pp.394-401
• /
• 1996

Noise pollution, especially road traffic noise has become a major problem in Seoul. However, although noise can be sensed directly, it is considered somewhat less important compared to other environmental pollutions. In this study, we chose nine districts in Seoul and distributed a questionnaire composed of 23 questions in related to the awareness of noise pollution for 950 people living in Seoul. The results were analyzed according to district area, age, occupation, and were compared to the actual noise level measured by the Seoul Metropolitan Government. The analysis of the questionnaire show that road traffic noise is considered to be the main source of noise pollution in Seoul. People think that the individual and the Seoul Metropolitan Government are most responsible for the noise reduction in Seoul, but replies only little effort is put into when asked whether one has made any personal effort to reduce noise. We have concluded that noise pollution is not considered a hazardous problem to most Seoul citizens, and that most of them seem to be used to it. Yet, specific noise reduction policies, especially road traffic noise, are expected to take effect as quality of life is pursued due to economic enhancement.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
• /
• v.19 no.1 s.19
• /
• pp.100-122
• /
• 1986

Obtaining an available information on health concerns of parents of school-age children and furthermore developing the sound policy for the public on health education, this study was conducted during Nov.-Dec. 1985 in the four selected areas; Seoul, large, middle and small city, and farming and fishery villages for 3,337 parents of schoolchildren in Korea. In this study, parents complected a questionnaire containing 34 items related to health concerns(e.g. drinking alcohol, air pollution, cancer, etc. see Table 4 and Fig. 2). For each health items, respondents were asked to indicate a choice between three levels of concern; 'Very high concern,' 'Moderate concern,' 'Little concern', and 'No opinion'. An analysis of responses indicated that most of the top ten health concerns identified by parents as cancer, abortions among high school students, medical malpractice, water pollution, traffic accidents, air pollution, suicide of parents and homicide of offspring, heart disease, venereal diseases, and high blood pressure in that order. Those health problems about which respondents were least concerned were more closely related to the individual, such as drinking alcohol, smoking, tooth decay, gum disease, underweight, overweight. Of greater concern were more such as water pollution, abortions among high school students, air pollution, accidents, medical malpractice. For cancer, heart disease, high blood pressure, various accidents, environmental pollution, parents showed high concern, however, for health issues which contributed as causative influences such as lung cancer from smoking and liver cirrhosis and traffic accidents from drinking alcohol showed less concern. Relationship between parent's residential areas, educational level and sex distribution and health concern showed little difference, however, for these issues parents identified as relatively high concern. Most parents stowed more concern in sex-related of family-related health issues such as abortions among high school students, suicide of parents and homicide of offspring.

• Proceedings of the Korea Air Pollution Research Association Conference
• /
• 2010.04a
• /
• pp.336-337
• /
• 2010

• Environmental Analysis Health and Toxicology
• /
• v.30
• /
• pp.10.1-10.14
• /
• 2015

Recent cohort studies have relied on exposure prediction models to estimate individual-level air pollution concentrations because individual air pollution measurements are not available for cohort locations. For such prediction models, geographic variables related to pollution sources are important inputs. We demonstrated the computation process of geographic variables mostly recorded in 2010 at regulatory air pollution monitoring sites in South Korea. On the basis of previous studies, we finalized a list of 313 geographic variables related to air pollution sources in eight categories including traffic, demographic characteristics, land use, transportation facilities, physical geography, emissions, vegetation, and altitude. We then obtained data from different sources such as the Statistics Geographic Information Service and Korean Transport Database. After integrating all available data to a single database by matching coordinate systems and converting non-spatial data to spatial data, we computed geographic variables at 294 regulatory monitoring sites in South Korea. The data integration and variable computation were performed by using ArcGIS version 10.2 (ESRI Inc., Redlands, CA, USA). For traffic, we computed the distances to the nearest roads and the sums of road lengths within different sizes of circular buffers. In addition, we calculated the numbers of residents, households, housing buildings, companies, and employees within the buffers. The percentages of areas for different types of land use compared to total areas were calculated within the buffers. For transportation facilities and physical geography, we computed the distances to the closest public transportation depots and the boundary lines. The vegetation index and altitude were estimated at a given location by using satellite data. The summary statistics of geographic variables in Seoul across monitoring sites showed different patterns between urban background and urban roadside sites. This study provided practical knowledge on the computation process of geographic variables in South Korea, which will improve air pollution prediction models and contribute to subsequent health analyses.