Vehicle Energy Use and Safety Information Support System
There is an inherent trade-off between safety, energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions in the consumer auto market. That trade-off is often overlooked, and rarely optimized, since vehicles are getting heavier (with the introduction of more safety equipments), and this fact does not lead to a reduction in fuel consumption. This research developed a new Decision Support Tool (DST) on vehicle safety criteria and energy use (entitled SINERG-AVR) to serve as an information system for road vehicles market in Europe and in the United States of America. SINERG-AVR includes fuel use, CO2 emissions and the results of safety crash tests. Using this DST a selection of the safer, fuel efficient and less polluting cars for both countries can be made. Vehicles running on alternative fuels or with alternative propulsion modes are also considered. There are several vehicles in the European and US auto markets that received good scores on safety tests and that also have relatively low CO2 emissions per kilometer traveled. For the European auto market, these vehicles have mainly diesel engines (with an exception for a hybrid gasoline vehicle), with displacements between 1200 and 2000 cm3. They are produced by several manufacturers, such as BMW, Fiat, Ford, Opel, Renault and Toyota. In the US auto market, all are gasoline cars, they have displacements between 1800 and 3500 cm3 and were produced by several manufacturers, such as Audi, Ford, Honda, Mercedes-Benz, Mitsubishi, Saturn and Toyota. The US auto market has much fewer light duty diesel vehicles than Europe, and diesel vehicles are, on average, 30% more energy efficient than comparable gasoline vehicles. The proposed DST empowers the end user to purchase new vehicles that meet both their personal as well as the larger societal needs and preferences, suggesting that it is possible to buy vehicles that are able to meet both requirements of fuel efficiency and safety.
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Corporate Authors:
500 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC United States 20001 -
Authors:
- Coelho, Margarida Cabrita
- Andrade, Joao
- Soares, Daniel
- Frey, H Christopher
- Rouphail, Nagui M
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Conference:
- Transportation Research Board 89th Annual Meeting
- Location: Washington DC, United States
- Date: 2010-1-10 to 2010-1-14
- Date: 2010
Language
- English
Media Info
- Media Type: DVD
- Features: Figures; References; Tables;
- Pagination: 17p
- Monograph Title: TRB 89th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers DVD
Subject/Index Terms
- TRT Terms: Alternate fuels; Carbon dioxide; Consumers; Crash tests; Decision making; Diesel engine exhaust gases; Diesel engines; Energy; Exhaust gases; Fuel consumption; Highway safety; Hybrid vehicles; Optimization; Vehicle safety; Vehicle weight
- Subject Areas: Energy; Highways; Safety and Human Factors; Vehicles and Equipment; I91: Vehicle Design and Safety;
Filing Info
- Accession Number: 01155157
- Record Type: Publication
- Report/Paper Numbers: 10-3034
- Files: TRIS, TRB
- Created Date: Apr 23 2010 8:26AM