Impact of Road Quality, Traffic Management and Driver Training on Vehicular Emissions and Fuel Economy- An Experimental Study on Indian Roads

In India, continuous efforts are being made to upgrade fuel quality and vehicle technology for meeting European emission norms. However, these efforts make a very little impact in improving the air quality due to exponential increase in the vehicle population and the poor quality of the Indian roads. The long-term strategy for meeting the requirement of huge road infrastructure and traffic management systems needs immediate attention. Studies have been conducted worldwide to study the effect of fuel quality and vehicle technology on fuel economy and emissions. However, the contribution of road quality, traffic management and driver training on reduction of vehicular emissions and improvement of fuel economy under Indian road conditions is still not established. In order to make the accurate assessment under Indian road conditions, a study was carried out on a gasoline passenger car equipped with global positioning system, on-board portable emission measurement system and fuel flow meter.

The vehicle was run under the city and highway driving conditions on various routes to study the impact of road quality, traffic management and driver training on vehicular emissions and fuel economy. The study indicated that road quality and traffic management can contribute to fuel economy improvement of as high as 18%. The driver behaviour and training was seen to play a major role in improvement of the fuel economy and an improvement of 11% was observed between poor and average driver whereas the improvement was up to 50% between average and an excellently trained driver. The vehicular emissions were seen to be lower under steady speeds and higher under acceleration mode and stop-and-go operation. The paper analyzes various scenarios to understand the effect of road quality and driver training on vehicular emissions and fuel economy.