Evaluation of Driving Behavior and Attitude Toward Eco-Driving: Southern California Limited Case Study

Among several strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles, “eco-driving” is one that had not received much attention in the United States until recently. The basic idea of any eco-driving program is to provide drivers with a variety of advice and feedback to minimize fuel consumption (and emissions) while driving. We have recently carried out an eco-driving study in Southern California. This study evaluated how an on-board eco-driving device that provides instantaneous fuel economy feedback affects driving behavior, and the resulting fuel economy, of a limited number of gasoline-engine vehicle drivers in Southern California under real-world driving conditions. The results from 20 driver samples show that, on average, the fuel economy on city streets improves by 6% while the fuel economy on highways improves by only 1%. The low improvement on highways may partly be due to the mostly congested freeways in the study area, which already constrained the driving. According to responses to the questionnaire at the end of the study period, the group of participating drivers were willing to adopt eco-driving practices in the near future (mean score of 7.4 out of 10). In fact, 40% of them have already practiced eco-driving, which may also be another reason for relatively low fuel economy improvements found in this study. For this group of drivers, the eco-driving adoption rate could go up to 95% if the gasoline price increased above $4 per gallon. Additional research is needed at a larger scale and for a longer time period.

• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Boriboonsomsin, Kanok
  • Barth, Matthew J
  • Vu, Alexander
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 90th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2011-1-23 to 2011-1-27
• Date: 2011

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; Tables;
• Pagination: 14p
• Monograph Title: TRB 90th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers DVD

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Behavior; Driving; Ecodriving; Fuel consumption; Greenhouse gases; Pollutants; Sustainable transportation
• Uncontrolled Terms: Fuel efficiency
• Geographic Terms: Southern California
• Subject Areas: Energy; Environment; Highways; I15: Environment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01338018
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 11-0151
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: Apr 28 2011 7:00AM