Environmental Effects of a Woonerf-Type Street Configuration: A Microscopic Traffic Simulation Study of a Small Tourist Village

The increasing demand for sustainable mobility solutions requires the evaluation of traffic management strategies that can accommodate changing travel demand while maintaining acceptable operational and environmental performance. This study investigates the effects of implementing a woonerf-type shared-space concept on vehicle fuel consumption and carbon monoxide (CO) emissions using microscopic traffic simulation. The analysis was conducted for Morska Street in Rewa, a small coastal tourist village in northern Poland characterized by substantial seasonal variations in traffic demand, intensive pedestrian activity, high parking demand, and interactions between different transport modes. Four simulation scenarios were developed using PTV Vissim 2026 with the Viswalk module, representing the existing traffic organization and the proposed woonerf solution under typical and increased tourist traffic conditions. The models incorporated vehicle trajectories, pedestrian interactions, parking search behavior, and public transport operations to provide an integrated representation of local traffic conditions. The results indicate that the implementation of the woonerf-type solution did not result in deterioration of traffic performance or increased environmental impacts. Under comparable traffic demand conditions, differences in fuel consumption and CO emissions between the existing and proposed configurations remained below 2%. Under increased tourist traffic intensity, the woonerf scenario resulted in slightly lower fuel consumption and pollutant emissions compared with the existing street configuration. The findings indicate that a shared-space solution can be implemented in a small tourist settlement without increasing vehicle-related environmental impacts or adversely affecting traffic performance. The study also demonstrates that microscopic traffic simulation can serve as an effective decision-support tool for assessing sustainable mobility interventions and their environmental implications before physical implementation.