Combined influence of traffic conditions, driving behavior, and type of road on fuel consumption. Real driving data from Madrid Area

The increasingly widespread use of vehicles has intensified fuel consumption and hence the emission of air pollutants, causing a negative environmental impact on both human health and climate change. It is well known that vehicle fuel consumption depends on several factors such as engine and vehicle technology, road characteristics, traffic conditions, and driver ability. Although the relationship between these variables has been subject of several researches, the combined influence of traffic flow with road type on vehicle fuel consumption has not yet been studied in depth. This paper aims to fill this gap by processing a large dataset of real-world driving data from an experiment carried out in Madrid, Spain; and to develop and validate a new approach using cluster analysis to define real traffic conditions. The results indicate that poor traffic conditions can significantly reduce vehicle’s energy efficiency and influence driving behavior, rather drastically depending on the road typology. While on high-capacity roads the speed covariance increases up to 73% in congestion, on low-capacity roads it increases by 31%, since road geometry also covers an important role; indeed, due to their complex and segmented geometry, local streets show 37% less vehicle’s energy efficiency compared with highways. The outcomes of this study suggest that energy efficiency depends on avoiding congestion on high-capacity roads, selecting green itineraries using the right road sections and having a more homogeneous driving behavior on low-capacity roads, through eco-driving whenever possible.