Developing Eco-Driving Strategies considering City Characteristics

CO2 emissions reduction is a top element of transport policy agenda. Among other mitigation policy measures, eco-driving techniques have proven to be effective in reducing fuel consumption and CO2 emissions. The aim of this paper is to compare the impacts of adopting eco-driving in different cities, road segments, traffic, and driver features. It intends to gain an insight into how city size and driving characteristics can reduce fuel consumption and CO2 emissions in order to develop specific eco-driving strategies. Field trials were conducted in two Spanish cities (Madrid and Caceres). 24 drivers, with different driving experiences, drove two different vehicles (petrol and diesel) along roads with different characteristics. The experiment was divided into two periods of 2 weeks; after the first one, drivers received an eco-driving training course. The impacts of eco-driving were measured comparing before and after results. They showed that eco-driving is highly effective in reducing fuel consumption and CO2 emissions in both, large-congested and small, cities. Savings between 5% and 12% were achieved. The efficiency increases with road capacity and decreased with city size. Eco-driving appears to be more effective in small, uncongested cities. In addition, limiting speeds on high capacity roads has proven to be a good energy saving measure.