Emission Control Science and Technology - Call for papers! Special Issue on Moving Towards Onboard Sensing, Analysis, and Reporting (OSAR)

Opportunity to publish your PEMS or related work in a Special Issue of Emissions Control Science and Technology, an International Journal

In-Use Vehicle Emissions: New Research, Evidence, Thinking, and Policy Implications

The world of vehicle emissions monitoring has expanded andevolved considerably over the past few years. With the implementation of regulatory requirements such as Real Driving Emissions (RDE) testing internationally and in-use Not-to-Exceed requirements for heavy-duty vehicles in the United States (U.S.), Portable Emissions Measurement Systems (PEMS) have become the cornerstone of regulatory efforts to monitor and assess in-use vehicle emissions. More recently, efforts to expand in-use emissions monitoring are being implemented internationally, such as the California Air Resources Board’s Real Emissions Assessment Logging (REAL) requirements, China VI on-board monitoring (OBM) requirements for heavy-duty vehicles, and efforts such as the City Air Remote Emission Sensing (CARES) project in Europe. As such, the range of emissions monitoring system and methodologies ranges from fully compliant PEMS, designed to provide measurements comparable to laboratory methods within the confines of in-use, to mini-PEMS, micro-PEMS, and sensor-based PEMS, which are not designed around laboratory based requirements, but rather use a variety of techniques that can be to potentially monitoring a much greater population of vehicles over a full range of operating conditions, to remote sensing methods that can be utilized to monitor vehicles externally under in-use operating conditions.

To stay abreast of the latest developments in in-use monitoring methods, measurement systems, and in-use emissions characterization, the University of California at Riverside holds an annual International Portable Emissions Measurement System (PEMS) Conference. This year’s conference explores the application and benefits of using this full range of portable measurement systems for the characterization and compliance testing of internal combustion sources under in-use conditions, and highlights the latest advancement in these systems, research based on making and analyzing emissions and activity with these systems, and how such systems can be used in different applications. The range of research topics, questions, and related research to be explored through the conference includes, but is not restricted to the following:

What are the latest developments and advancements in fully compliant PEMS, mini- and smaller PEMS, and on-board sensing technology?How will PEMS or other on-board sensing approaches be used by governmental agencies to provide enhanced compliance testing, and how will these approaches vary across the international landscape?How are researchers and agencies utilizing portable measurement systems to improve our understanding on real world emissions?How will portable emissions measurements evolve as emissions continue towards ultra-low emissions levels?What are the benefits of activity measurements using portable activity measurement systems (PAMS), and how can such information be used to improve our predictions of in-use emissions and develop more accurate emissions inventories?

This year, the PEMS conference organizers and Springer Nature™ have reached an agreement to publish selected publications of this conference in a Special Edition of Springer’s international journal Emission Control Science and Technology, the only peer-reviewed, archival publication solely dedicated to the latest developments in emissions monitoring, amongst its other, related focal areas. The goal of this Special Edition is to bring together the UCR PEMS conference and related research in a single issue of the said journal, focused on addressing research, developments, applications and regulatory aspects of measuring and understanding in-use emissions. The resulting Special Edition aims to provide valuable information to a wide range of stakeholders including scientists and engineers working in the field of in-use emissions, modelers working on developing emissions inventory models, and regulators and industry representatives working in environmental policy focused on vehicle and source emissions. 

PEMS conference attendees, presenters and speakers wishing to publish in this Special Issue of Emission Control Science and Technology are invited to contact the conference organizers at certpems@cert.ucr.edu (this opens in a new tab)