Quantifying Reductions in Personal Vehicle Energy Consumption Due to Driving Style Changes

Improving driving style can lead to reduced energy use and emissions from vehicles. These reductions come at no monetary cost to drivers and do not require changes to infrastructure or vehicle technology. Modifications can include limiting top speeds, smoothing acceleration, and reducing the amount of braking through anticipatory driving. Due in part to the complexity of existing travel patterns, there is disagreement on the system-wide savings achievable through improved driving style and on the relative effectiveness of different heuristic rules. This paper presents a method to estimate reductions in energy use through improved driving style by sampling and modifying second-by-second drive cycles and combining them with a vehicle energy model called TripEnergy. It shows energy savings of approximately 5% achievable given nationwide driving patterns, with the highest savings coming from reducing the amount of braking through anticipatory driving. It also examines differences in possible energy savings across locations with different travel patterns and between different vehicle classes and technologies. This analysis provides estimates of total system-wide energy savings through modest driving style changes that are in agreement with previous estimates but, importantly, provides new insight by revealing how these aggregate savings are distributed across different types of trips, vehicles, locations, and behavioral patterns. This knowledge is essential for identifying the highest energy savings opportunities through driving behavior changes, designing measures to reinforce this behavior in drivers, and allocating eco-driving incentives and rewards in a fair way.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ADC20 Standing Committee on Transportation and Air Quality.
• Authors:
  • Miotti, Marco
  • Needell, Zachary A
  • Trancik, Jessika E
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 97th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2018-1-7 to 2018-1-11
• Date: 2018

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References;
• Pagination: 14p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Driving; Ecodriving; Energy consumption; Environmental impacts; Quantitative analysis
• Subject Areas: Energy; Environment; Highways; Vehicles and Equipment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01657446
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 18-05755
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Jan 24 2018 9:24AM