Identifying the Correlation Between Rainfall, Traffic Flow Performance and Air Pollution Concentration in Seoul Using a Path Analysis

Abstract Extreme weather events including a heavy rain and the snow are known to have negative impacts on the traffic flow and on the air quality in turn. Rainfall however has a moderate effect of washing the pollution in the air as well. The literature has mostly concerned one of these two conflicting impacts, but they are better analyzed by simultaneous linear equations. The paper employs a path analysis to investigate the complex impact of rainfall on the air pollution on the road via the change in traffic flow. The results differ between the amounts of rainfall and between pollutants.