{"id":183236,"date":"2026-04-02T09:18:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T09:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/183236\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T09:18:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T09:18:10","slug":"mit-researchers-measure-traffic-emissions-to-the-block-in-real-time-mit-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/183236\/","title":{"rendered":"MIT researchers measure traffic emissions, to the block, in real-time | MIT News"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a study focused on New York City, MIT researchers have shown that existing sensors and mobile data can be used to generate a near real-time, high-resolution picture of auto emissions, which could be used to develop local transportation and decarbonization policies.<\/p>\n

The new method produces much more detailed data than some other common approaches, which use intermittent samples of vehicle emissions. The researchers say it is also more practical and scales up better than some studies that have aimed for very granular emissions data from a small number of automobiles at once. The work helps bridge the gap between less-detailed citywide emissions inventories and highly detailed analyses based on individual vehicles.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur model, by combining real-time traffic cameras with multiple data sources, allows extrapolating very detailed emission maps, down to a single road and hour of the day,\u201d says Paolo Santi, a principal research scientist in the MIT Senseable City Lab and co-author of a new paper detailing the project\u2019s results<\/a>. \u201cSuch detailed information can prove very helpful to support decision-making and understand effects of traffic and mobility interventions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carlo Ratti, director of the MIT Senseable City Lab, notes that the research \u201cis part of our lab\u2019s ongoing quest into hyperlocal measurements of air quality and other environmental factors. By integrating multiple streams of data, we can reach a level of precision that was unthinkable just a few years ago \u2014 giving policymakers powerful new tools to understand and protect human health.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new method also protects privacy, since it uses computer vision techniques to recognize types of vehicles, but without compiling license plate numbers. The study leverages technologies, including those already installed at intersections, to yield richer data about vehicle movement and pollution.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe very basic idea is just to estimate traffic emissions using existing data sources in a cost-effective way,\u201d says Songhua Hu, a former postdoc in the Senseable City Lab,\u00a0and now an assistant professor at City University\u00a0of Hong Kong.<\/p>\n

The paper, \u201cUbiquitous Data-driven Framework for Traffic Emission Estimation and Policy Evaluation<\/a>,\u201d is published in Nature Sustainability.<\/p>\n

The authors are Hu; Santi; Tom Benson, a researcher in the Senseable City Lab; Xuesong Zhou, a professor of transportation engineering at Arizona State University; An Wang, an assistant professor at Hong Kong Polytechnic University;\u00a0Ashutosh Kumar, a visiting doctoral student at the Senseable City Lab; and Ratti. The MIT Senseable City Lab is part of MIT\u2019s Department of Urban Studies and Planning.<\/p>\n

Manhattan measurements<\/p>\n

To conduct the study, the researchers used images from 331 cameras already in use in Manhattan intersections, along with anonymized location records from over 1.75 million mobile phones. Applying vehicle-recognition programs and defining 12 broad categories of automobiles, the scholars found they could correctly place 93 percent of vehicles in the right category. The imaging also yielded important information about the specific ways traffic signals affect traffic flow. That matters because traffic signals are a major reason for stop-and-go driving patterns, which strongly affect urban emissions but are often omitted in conventional inventories.<\/p>\n

The mobile phone data then provided rich information about the overall patterns of traffic and movement of individual vehicles throughout the city. The scholars combined the camera and phone data with known information about emissions rates to arrive at their own emissions estimates for New York City.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just need to\u00a0input all emission-related information based on existing urban data sources,\u00a0and we can estimate the traffic emissions,\u201d Hu says.<\/p>\n

Moreover, the researchers evaluated the changes in emissions that might occur in different scenarios when traffic patterns, or vehicle types, also change.<\/p>\n

For one,\u00a0they modeled what would happen to emissions if a certain percentage of travel demand shifted from private vehicles to buses. In another scenario, they looked at what would happen if morning and evening rush hour times were spread out a bit longer, leaving fewer vehicles on the road at once. They also modeled the effects of replacing fine-grained emissions inputs with citywide averages \u2014 finding that the rougher emissions estimates could vary widely, from \u221249 percent to 25 percent of the more fine-tuned results. That underscores how seemingly small simplifications can introduce large errors into emission estimates.<\/p>\n

Major emissions drop<\/p>\n

On one level, this work involved altering inputs into the model and seeing what emerged. But one scenario the researchers studied is based on a real-world change: In January 2025, New York City implemented congestion pricing south of 60th Street in Manhattan.<\/p>\n

To study that, the researchers looked at what happened to vehicle traffic at intervals of two, four, six, and eight weeks after the program began. Overall, congestion pricing lowered traffic volume by about 10 percent \u2014 but there was a corresponding drop in emissions of 16-22 percent.<\/p>\n

This finding aligns with a previous study by\u00a0researchers at Cornell University, which reported a 22 percent reduction in particulate matter (PM2.5) levels within the pricing zone. The MIT team also found that these reductions were not evenly distributed across the network, with larger declines on some major streets and more mixed effects outside the pricing zone.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe see these kinds of huge changes after the congestion pricing began, Hu says. \u201cI think that\u2019s a demonstration that our model can be very helpful if a government really wants to know if a new policy converts into real-world impact.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are additional forms of data that could be fed into the researchers\u2019 new method. For instance, in related work in Amsterdam, the team leveraged dashboard cams from vehicles to yield rich information about vehicle movement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith our model we can make any camera used in cities, from the hundreds of traffic cameras to the thousands of dash cams, a powerful device to estimate traffic emissions in real-time,\u201d says\u00a0F\u00e1bio\u00a0Duarte, the associate director of research and design at the MIT Senseable City Lab, who has worked on multiple related studies.<\/p>\n

The research was supported by the MIT Senseable City Consortium, which consists of\u00a0Atlas University, the city\u00a0of Laval, the city of Rio de Janeiro, Consiglio per la Ricerca in Agricoltura e l\u2019Analisi\u00a0dell\u2019Economia Agraria, the Dubai Future Foundation, FAE Technology, KAIST Center\u00a0for Advanced Urban Systems, Sondotecnica, Toyota, and Volkswagen Group America.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a study focused on New York City, MIT researchers have shown that existing sensors and mobile data…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":183237,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[73757,73760,73758,9,24,55,54,56,73759,73756,73761],"class_list":{"0":"post-183236","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-carlo-ratti","9":"tag-city-car-pollution","10":"tag-fabio-duarte","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","14":"tag-new-york-city-news","15":"tag-ny","16":"tag-paolo-santi","17":"tag-senseable-city-lab","18":"tag-urban-auto-emissions"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183236\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}