Abstract

Traffic engineers and city planners need either a large empirical database or improved models to assess and predict the impacts of new traffic management strategies or business developments on air quality. The spatial and temporal resolution of lidar technology coupled with its relatively wide-area remote sensing capability make it ideally suited for studying traffic-related air quality problems, which are by nature distributed, mobile, and transient. With proper eye-safety precautions, lidar systems can be used to monitor ambient particle concentrations near ground level in urban environments.

© 1997 Optical Society of America