Real-time measurements of SO2, H2CO, and CH4 emissions from in-use curbside passenger buses in New York City using a chase vehicle

The Aerodyne Mobile Laboratory "chased" in-use curbside passenger buses operated by various operators in New York City. With the cooperation of New York State's Metropolitan Transit Authority, the relationships between the emissions of the several gas-phase species and particulate loadings were investigated across several bus technologies, bus types, and fuels (diesel, ultralow sulfur diesel, and compressed natural gas, CNG). The CNG buses followed did not employ an oxidation catalyst. The buses characterized were not prescreened in any fashion and were measured while deployed on their normal in-service routes. This paper focuses on the fuel-based mass emissions of SO2, H2CO, and CH4, measured using tunable infrared laser differential absorption spectroscopy. Sulfur dioxide emissions from buses known to be burning ultralow sulfur diesel (< 30 ppm(m), S) were 16 times lower than those from buses burning normal commercial diesel fuel, nominally less than 300 ppm(m), sulfur. Emissions of formaldehyde and methane from in-use CNG buses were similar to 15 times greater than those from diesel powered buses.