National Center for Sustainable Transportation

In this research project, the research team developed an environmentally-friendly driving feedback system for heavy-duty trucks, which was adapted from a similar system previously developed for light-duty cars. The system consists of: 1) Eco-Routing Navigation technology that provides route feedback by determining the most fuel-efficient route for any trip with consideration of historical and real-time traffic, and roadway conditions; 2) Eco-Driving Feedback technology that provides a variety of driving feedback, such as excessive speed warning, aggressive acceleration warning, recommended driving speed, etc., under different driving situations; and 3) Eco-Score and Eco-Rank technology that calculates a set of scores based on how eco-friendly one’s driving is, and generates recommendation feedback for improving the driving performance and the scores. The Eco-Driving Feedback technology was integrated with the state-of-the-art truck driving simulator. A driving scenario that represents a typical freight trip in Southern California was programmed into the simulator and used as a driving course in an experiment with 22 truck driver participants. The results show that the impacts for individual participants are different to varying degrees. On average, the Eco-Driving Feedback technology has no adverse impact on travel time and carbon monoxide emission while reducing fuel consumption, oxides of nitrogen emission, and fine particulate matter emission by 11%, 8%, and 8%, respectively. Based on the promising results from this research project that was conducted in a simulator environment, a follow-on study in a real-world environment is warranted.

View the NCST Project Webpage