WASHINGTON - The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced an updated version of the Motor Vehicle Emission Simulator (MOVES) model - MOVES2010 - is now available for use to estimate air pollution from cars, trucks, and other on-road mobile sources. The model can also calculate the emissions reduction benefits from a range of mobile source control strategies, such as inspection and maintenance programs and local fuel standards, according to the EPA.

EPA will soon publish a Federal Register notice approving MOVES2010 for meeting official state implementation plan and transportation conformity requirements. The MOVES2010 model replaces EPA's MOBILE6.2 emissions factor model.

Under the Clean Air Act, EPA is required to update regularly the way it calculates mobile source emissions. EPA is continuously collecting data and conducting emissions studies to assess the air quality impacts of on-road vehicles. As a result of using data collected from millions of cars and trucks gathered since MOBILE6.2 was released in 2004, MOVES2010 provides increased accuracy in emissions inventory results.

For the first time, the model can estimate emissions on a range of scales from national emissions impacts down to the impacts of individual transportation projects. Another improvement is the ability to express output as either total mass (in tons, pounds, kilograms, or grams) or as emissions factors (grams-per-mile, and in some cases, grams-per-vehicle). These changes to how EPA approaches mobile source emissions modeling are based, in part, upon recommendations made to the agency by the National Academy of Sciences.     

More information on the MOVES2010 model is available at www.epa.gov/otaq/models/moves/index.htm.