Fuel-Efficient Driving

How to support fuel-efficient driving? (2018) by Ekaterina Gilman et al. 

published in IET Intelligent Transport Systems
doi: 10.1049/iet-its.2016.0280 
 
There are many ways in which the emissions from road transport can be reduced. An appropriate initial choice of vehicle, together with suitable maintenance, may be thought of as a strategic decision. This paper concentrates on tactics and operation; issues of route selection and driver behaviour, and in particular the technical systems available to inform them. 
 
The authors acknowledge that cultivating sustainable change in driving behaviour is difficult, and that this needs to be reflected in the design of any form of technical assistance. (Readers may notice points in this study which are analogous to issues in other areas of energy saving, such as domestic heating).
The paper reviews the literature on driving assistance systems, and notes some general points. Feedback to the driver on the fuel saving achieved is usually of great interest, and is a motivating factor, even where financial considerations are unimportant. Social involvement can also improve effectiveness, for example by allowing the sharing of information between drivers using similar systems, vehicles or routes.
A degree of personalisation is also important; examples are the choice of when feedback is given, and the way that it is presented. Safety is an over-riding consideration in data presentation – the driver must not be distracted. Drivers may be offered the option of receiving suggestions on how to improve efficiency, in addition to simply being given data on fuel consumption. A sophisticated system can identify personal driver traits and set targets based on the driver’s progress. Some features of gaming can be useful, for example, withholding more advanced features of the system until adequate progress has been made at a more elementary level.
A major aim of driver assistance is to promote reflection on driving, and to allow the driver to gain overt knowledge of his or her driving behaviour.
The writers point to the probable adoption of mobile phones as the platform for eco-driving assistants, and to the growing interest in car sharing; both factors indicate the desirability of standardised protocols used in portable systems so that they can be used in a variety of different vehicles. These considerations also make standardised user interfaces attractive. 
 
This recent paper is not available on open access, but a selection of those works cited in it which are freely available is given below.

A state of the art review and users’ expectations, ecoDriver, 2013

Eco-driving: An overlooked climate change initiative
JN Barkenbus, Energy Policy, 2010.

Survey of smartphone-based sensing in vehicles for intelligent transportation system applications
J Engelbrecht, MJ Booysen, IET, 2015. 
 
Acceptance of future persuasive in-car interfaces towards a more economic driving behaviour
A Meschtscherjakov, D Wilfinger, T Scherndl, 2009.

Getting drivers to do the right thing: a review of the potential for safely reducing energy consumption through design
RC McIlroy, NA Stanton, C Harvey, IET Intelligent Transport Systems, 2014.


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