Analysis of driving behaviours of truck drivers using motorway tests

Abstract

Road transportations still play a dominant role in goods delivery, and driving behaviours significantly affect the fuel economy of heavy-duty trucks. Plenty of fossil fuel is wasted as a result of unreasonable driving behaviours even in the case of highly experienced drivers. The objective of this paper is to analyse drivers’ behaviours over two segments of motorways and estimate the potential benefits of fuel saving caused by a change in driving habits during national and international goods delivery. Drivers’ habits on motorways change depending on the road situations. In the acceleration process, the fuel consumption rates are huge even under low-speed conditions. The truck fuel consumption rates are exaggerated by positive road slopes, but still dominated by acceleration. Accelerations are generally in normal distributions, with the median value being approximately 0.5 m/s2. The speed ranges corresponding to each gear enlarge with the increase in gear number. The potentials of annual fuel saving for parts of European Union countries are nearly 2 × 106 m3 by adopting proper driving behaviours.