uTECH Turbo-MOVES: The Intersection of Software Architectural Innovation and Sustainable Mobility Analysis

Abstract

Transportation is a major source of energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and criteria air pollutants, making efficient emissions estimation essential for environmental planning and policy analyses. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Motor Vehicle Emission Simulator (MOVES) supports detailed emissions modeling, but its computational demands constrain large-scale scenario analyses. This study introduces uTECH Turbo-MOVES, a software architecture that expedites MOVES computation without modifying its Calculator modules or input/output structure. By combining RunSpec partitioning, container isolation, in-memory intermediate storage, and concurrent workload orchestration, it improves execution efficiency. We evaluate six benchmark cases spanning County, Default, and Project scales and both Emission Inventory and Emission Rates modes. Results demonstrate a measured 5.5x and an estimated 15.3x per-run speedup for Default-scale workloads, and an 84.8x campaign speedup for an eight-county Emission Rates analysis. Although gains vary by workload and hardware configuration, uTECH Turbo-MOVES enables more extensive environmental assessments and transportation policy evaluation.