Eco-Routing: More Green Drivers Means More Benefits?

Abstract

Information and Communications Technology (ICT)/Information and Technology Services (ITS) can play an important role in the transport sector, helping in maintaining accessibility and contemporarily optimizing the use of the vehicles. Among these ICT measures, ecorouting seems a promising one. Drivers normally follow the route which minimizes their generalized costs, normally time and money. But environmental concern is increasing, and drivers are starting to think about the effects of their driving. This means including CO2 emissions or fuel consumption in their route choice. But is this always positive, independently of the traffic situation and the penetration level of green drivers?This articles aims to analyze what happens in terms of fuel consumption, CO2 emissions and travel time, when different penetration levels of drivers, and with different traffic situations, follow the route of minimum fuel consumption instead of the conventional generalized costs. The analysis is based on a modelling process using a transport model of the whole region of Madrid. A total of 18 scenarios are considered: 3 reference scenarios (for congested, medium and low flow traffic situations), and 5 different penetration levels of green drivers for each traffic situation.Results show how impact varies substantially with the level of traffic and, also, that the more the best is not always true.Road transport is the mode consuming most energy in the EU-27 (Eurostat, 2009). From 1990 to 2006, the final energy consumption of road transport grew at an annual rate of 1.6 %, to reach 303.3 million toe in 2006, which amounted to 25.8 % of total final energy consumption, and to 81.9 % of consumption in transport, compared to a share of 83.7 % in 1990. Over the shorter 1995-to-2006 period, final energy consumption in road transport grew by 1.8 % yearly which, over that period, compares to an annual increase in the performance of road passenger transport (passenger cars, powered two-wheelers, buses and coaches) of 1.5 % and an increase in road freight transport of 3.5 %.Thus, total GHG emissions of 992.3 million tonnes CO2 equivalent were attributable to