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Abstract

Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) is an air pollutant in urban areas that attracted great public attention over the past years. In this thesis we analysed the exposure of cyclists to NO2 in Heidelberg using an ICAD measurement system. Along a 20km route through Heidelberg, measurement runs were executed in winter, spring and summer time; during rush hours in the morning and evening as well as during off-peak times on various weekdays. The mean NO2 concentration we measured along the route was 40microgram/m3 and therefore just as high as the official guideline thresholds for the annual mean value. In addition, we executed point measurements at four different locations (in total 19 hours of measurements at different times of the day). The hourly mean concentrations at these locations, highly frequented by cyclists, pedestrians but also motorized vehicles, showed strong fluctuations in the range of 9 to 74 microgram/m3. In order to allow predictions about the annual mean NO2 concentrations based on our measurements, we analysed the diurnal and seasonal variations of the hourly means of NO2, measured by the governmental measurement station at Berliner Straße in Heidelberg. With the help of these results we extrapolated our measurement data to annual mean and rush hour concentrations. For the mean concentrations that we extrapolated for rush hours, we found that for large streets the concentrations varied between 42 and 96 microgram/m3.