This study was a time activity pattern assessment focused on transportation in subpopulation groups using the ‘Time-Use Survey’ conducted by the National Statistical Office in Korea in 2009. The time activity patterns of transportation on weekdays were analyzed, looking at average travel time in Seoul, Gyeonggido and the whole country. Various subpopulation groups were classified such as students, the elderly, workers and housewives. The population of Gyeonggido had a higher average transportation time than that of Seoul. Workers showed the highest weekly average travel, while the students group showed the lowest tendency. The times spent in walking, bus, subway and taxi were the highest in areas other than Gyeonggido, where the use of private vehicles such as car was higher. Therefore, exposure to hazardous air pollutants may vary depending on the transportation method and time spent. This results indicate that time activity pattern assessment on transportation may be an important element of exposure assessment.
Hazardous air pollutants such as NO2, VOCs and PM10 were measured Daegu, Korea in major micro-environments,where housewives spend the most of their time, and personal exposure times were estimated by using time activitypatterns and exposure scenarios. The major microenvironments of housewives were selected using the ‘Time-UseSurvey’ conducted by the National Statistical Office in Korea in 2009. A total of 4,514 (weekdays) and 3,063(weekends) housewives were recruited for the ‘Time-Use Survey.’ It seems that housewives are spending about80% of their time in the house, and about 5% of their time outdoors during weekdays and weekends. The indoor/outdoor ratio of the average concentration of NO2 was more than 1, which indicated that the source was indoors.Toluene was shown to have higher concentrations indoors than outdoors. Ethylbenzene and xylene displayedsimilar characteristics to toluene, and the concentration ratio for indoor/outdoor was shown to be 1.29 ± 0.76 and1.04 ± 0.45, respectively, higher concentrations indoors. Based on the results of the time activity patterns ofparticipants, 3 kinds of exposure scenarios were formulated. The spent time and air concentration in eachenvironment were assumed as normal and lognormal distribution, respectively. And then the Monte-Carlosimulation was conducted. According to the result of the simulation, the exposures to hazardous air pollutantsrevealed an increasing pattern as housewives visits other indoor environments such as supermarkets.
In this study, we estimated nitrogen dioxide (NO2) concentrations in microenvironments where residential indoor, residential outdoor, other indoors, and transportation using measured personal exposure and multiple linear regression analysis of time-weighted average model, and compared with measured NO2 concentration in microenvironments. Measured residential indoor, outdoor and other indoor NO2 concentration was 22.22±9.59 ppb, 23.64±9.62 ppb, and 22.07±13.90 ppb, respectively. NO2 concentrations in residential indoor and outdoor, total outdoor, other indoor, and transportation by multiple regression analysis were significantly estimated as 20.48 ppb, 32.79 ppb, 24.35 ppb, and 28.82 ppb, respectively (p= 0.000). Measured and estimated NO2 concentration were similar with each other, therefore NO2 concentrations in each microenvironment were able to be estimated using time-weighted average model and personal exposure with multiple regression analysis.
The information about time spent in microenvironments plays a critical role for an exposure assessment of the person concerned, considering the personal exposure relies on the characterization of activity patterns of the population at risk and human activities impact the timing, location, and level of personal pollutant exposure. The purposes of this paper were to present indoor time activity patterns of Korean from a population-based study and to determine individual factors of time spent in microenvironments. The population based study collected time activity pattern of about 32,000 Korean for two consecutive days. The mean times spent at home, other indoors, outdoors, and transportation in related to the whole sample of 19.025 people are 14.23hrs(59.3%), 6.80hrs(28.3%), 1.26hrs(5.2%), and 1.75hrs(7.3%) in weekday, respectively. Database provides information on how the proportion of persons in different locations changes by time of day in weekday. Here, we see that over 90% of respondents were in a residence from about 11 PM to 5 AM, and the largest proportions of respondents in offices, factories, schools and public buildings occur between 8 AM and 5 PM.