Green Routing Fuel Saving Opportunity Assessment: A Case Study Using Large-Scale Real-World Travel Data

New technologies such as connected and automated vehicles have attracted more and more research attention for their potential to improve the energy efficiency and environmental impact of current transportation systems. Green routing is one such connected vehicle strategy under which drivers receive information about the most fuel-efficient route before departing for a given destination. This paper introduces an evaluation framework for estimating the benefits of green routing based on large-scale, real-world travel data. The framework has the capability to quantify fuel savings by estimating the fuel consumption on alternate routes that could be taken between two locations and comparing these to the estimated fuel consumption of the actual route taken. A route-based fuel consumption estimation model that considers road traffic conditions, functional class, and grade is proposed and used in the framework. A study using a large-scale, high-resolution data set from the California Household Travel Survey indicates that 31% of actual routes have fuel savings potential, and among these routes the cumulative fuel savings could reach 12%. Alternately calculating the potential fuel savings relative to the full set of actual routes (including those that already follow the greenest route recommendation), the potential savings relative to the overall estimated fuel consumption would be 4.5%. Notably, two thirds of the fuel savings occur on green routes that save both fuel and time relative to the original actual routes. The remaining third would be subject to weighing the potential fuel savings against required increases in travel time for the recommended green route.