In line with the aviation sector predictions, which claim that around 39,000 new aircraft will be delivered over the next two decades, Paris Charles-De-Gaulle Airport is planning to welcome lots more passengers in the future, possibly an additional 40 million passengers each year.
In order to welcome these extra passengers, and thus the additional aircraft movements, a new terminal, Terminal 4 (T4), is to be built from 2021 to 2037, with a progressive opening from 2024.
However, aircraft and all airport activities are sources of gas and particulate emissions. Nitrogen oxides (NOx), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), carbon monoxide (CO) and fine suspended particles (PM) are the most important pollutants emitted by airport sources. Envisa was selected to model the emissions in order to study the relative impact of the development of Terminal 4 on the platform’s overall emissions balance.
In order to estimate the impact of the additional terminal on the airport’s contribution to air quality in the airport vicinity, six different scenarios were considered:
- 2017 which was considered as the year of reference
- 2024
- 2028 without T4
- 2028 with T4
- 2037 without T4
- 2037 with T4
For each of these scenarios, ADP provided Envisa with an estimated number of air traffic movements. Other considerations were also taken into account:
- Number of aircraft movements and evolution in the fleet, from one scenario to the other
- Number of movements allocated to T4
- Use of Auxiliary Power Unit (APU), and Ground Power Unit (GPU)
- Taxiing time
- Single Engine Taxiing (SET)
- Green Taxiing
- Use of biofuels
- Use of Ground Support Equipment (GSE)
- Road access network in both Air side and Land side
- Railway access network
- Power plants and emergency power generators
- Engine testing
All of the scenarios were based on the situation of the year of reference and the assumption made by ADP for its future equipment, in terms of energy supply or support equipment, as well as with predictions regarding the aircraft fleet.
Envisa extrapolated the data from the year of reference using the predicted number of movements for each scenario, in order to temporally and spatially distribute all these movements through the year and at the different stands.
The vehicular traffic was divided into two categories, Airside and Landside. Evolutions, in terms of numbers and technologies of vehicles was also taken into account.
LASPORT was used to make the calculations. Integrated with the LASAT dispersion model, the final results were presented geospatially as concentrations of NOx, HC, CO, CO2, Benzene, SOx, PM10, odorants, and non-volatile ultrafine particles (mass and number) for all explicit source groups.