How to Fairly Evaluate Eco-Driving? An Eco-Score System Developed Using Vehicle Characteristics and Traffic Conditions

The usage-based insurance (UBI) system records real-time driving behaviour such as speed, acceleration, and braking and adjusts the insurance premium accordingly. Driving behaviour is collected by in-vehicle devices, or applications installed on the driver’s mobile phone. UBI mobile applications can provide feedback to drivers as an eco-score representing the environmental impacts of their driving behaviour to incentivize more drivers to enroll in the tracking program. In addition, eco-score systems have been adopted in commercial fleet companies to reward fuel-efficient driving behaviour (McConky, Chen, & Gavi, 2018). Recent studies have shown that a considerable reduction of 5%-25% in fuel consumption and emission could be achieved after the application of eco-driving practice (Ma et al., 2019). Given that external factors have significant impacts on fuel consumption and emissions, there is a lack of eco-score systems that evaluate a driver’s behaviour with consideration of surrounding traffic conditions (Alam & McNabola, 2018). Most eco-score systems capture the effects of driving behaviour, road grade and basic vehicle characteristics (e.g., vehicle mass and model year) on trip-level emission intensities for internal combustion engine vehicles. This study improves upon these eco-score systems by incorporating additional vehicle characteristics (e.g., fuel type and engine type) and on-road traffic conditions in the emission estimation and eco-scoring algorithms. It develops two eco-scoring methods: Method 1 estimates a vehicle-specific eco-score by incorporating vehicle characteristics in the emission estimation; Method 2 improves the eco-scoring system by considering surrounding traffic conditions (e.g., road category, traffic congestion level) to demonstrate the significance of disentangling the effects of true driving behaviour from the effects of traffic congestion on driving.

• Order URL:
  • https://ctrf.ca
• Authors:
  • Xu, Junshi
  • Tu, Ran
  • Ahmed, Usman
  • Amirjamshidi, Glareh
  • 0000-0003-0857-0158
  • Hatzopoulou, Marianne
  • Roorda, Matthew
• Conference:
  • CTRF 56th Annual Conference - Ensuring Resilience in Transportation Systems: Anticipating and Responding to Pandemic, Climate, Demographic and Economic Changes
• Publication Date: 2021-5

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 4p

Subject/Index Terms

• ITRD Terms: 9001: Behaviour; 8018: Canada; 8525: Conference; 1772: Driver; 1872: Ecodriving; 9020: Evaluation (assessment); 1568: Insurance; 1578: Reward (incentive); 673: Traffic concentration
• Subject Areas: I15: Environment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01888484
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: Transportation Association of Canada (TAC)
• Files: ITRD, TAC
• Created Date: Jul 21 2023 5:21PM