COPERT Australia: A new software to estimate vehicle emissions in Australia

COPERT is a globally used software tool used to calculate air pollutant and greenhouse gas emissions produced by road transport, and its scientific development is managed by the European Commission. The software estimates all types of emissions including hot running, start, evaporative and non-exhaust (tire wear, brake wear). Previous studies showed that a similar software used in Australia needs to reflect local fleet composition and driving characteristics in order to provide adequate vehicle emission predictions for the Australian situation. Therefore, a dedicated Australian version of COPERT was developed in cooperation with an EU partner. This software has been calibrated with thousands of vehicle emission tests that were conducted in Australia. This paper discusses the methods and data used for the development of COPERT Australia. The model is then used to estimate road transport emissions for South East Queensland and the results are discussed.