Emissions of particulate matters from railways – emission factors and condition monitoring

We report tunnel measurements, where abrasion particles from different types of trains are measured in two situations and emission factors are calculated from these. The measurements show significantly elevated particle concentrations in train passages that last for about a minute and are accompanied by increased airflow. The emission of particles for each train passage was obtained by summing the product of the particle concentration and the airflow and then multiplying with the tunnel area. The average emission factors were calculated for three categories freight trains, commuter trains and regional trains and found to be 2.9 g/train-km (0.7 - 9), 0.48 (0.1 - 1.6) and 0.24 (0.05-0.9), respectively. The number in brackets refers to the range of values observed. The size-resolved data showed maxima around 1 mu m for all three train types