An Estimation Method of Negative External Cost for Motor Vehicle Pollutants on Ordinary National and Provincial Highways

To fully explore the value of traffic information collected by traffic investigation stations on ordinary national and provincial highways, based on traffic operational data, an estimation method is proposed for the motor vehicle pollutants'negative external cost on ordinary national and provincial highways. Based on the given ordinary national and provincial highway networks material, basic road attributes, traffic flow data, motor vehicle technology data, and urban socio-economic data are collected. After that, based on the emission factor multiplier method, the collected data is processed to determine the base emission coefficients for pollutants, environmental correction factors, road traffic condition correction factors, and fuel quality correction factors. Then, the comprehensive emission coefficient, total road network mileage, and monthly average daily traffic volume are derived. Additionally, the quantities of CO, HC, NO_x, PM_2.5, and PM₁₀ are calculated. Finally, based on the equivalent multiplier method, the economic values of CO, HC, NO_x, PM_2.5, and PM₁₀ emissions are calculated based on the quantity of pollutants and the unit tax amount of pollution equivalent, which results in the negative external cost of pollutants. The ordinary national and provincial highway network in Xuzhou City is selected to conduct the empirical study. The results show that the total emissions of motor vehicle pollutants from the network in 2022 were 8 514 tons, reflecting a negative external cost of 21.57 million yuan. In addition, the physical quantities of CO and NO_x accounted for up to 95% of the total emissions, the negative external cost of NO_x accounts for over 95% of the total cost, and passenger cars and medium-sized buses and oversized trucks had higher shares of CO and NO_x emissions, indicating that the focus of air pollution control in Xuzhou should be on controlling NO_x emissions from these types of vehicles. Compared with the research of other scholars, it can be seen that there are differences in the types of major pollutants and their primary emission sources among different cities. Therefore, the transportation sector should formulate relevant decisions based on actual conditions.