Development of Driving Schedules for Advanced Vehicle Assessment

The Advanced Vehicle (AV) Assessment is an activity being performed by JPL for the Electric and Hybrid Vehicle Division of the U.S. Department of Energy to evaluate subsystem developments for Advanced Vehicle applications the 1990s. The AVs are vehicles powered by nonpetroleum alternatives such as advanced batteries and fuel cell.

This paper describes the methodology used to develop the driving schedules that characterize annual driving. The 1978 National Personal Transportation Study was used as a basis for this analysis. The methodology used consists of a Monte Carlo simulation model that uses the trip frequency distribution and trip length frequency distribution to develop estimates of daily driving distances. These are then combined with the distribution of starting time of the first trip and mean time between trips to develop travel for each of the days in a year. Twelve such schedules, representing a range of daily travel distances from 4 km to 400 km, were devised for simulating the automobile use patterns for Advanced Vehicle Assessment. The annual fuel and energy consumption was based on the number of days each of the 12 daily travel distances was driven. The method used to develop these schedules has allowed for a more realistic assessment of the AV power sources compared to the use of continuous urban cycles for vehicle simulation.