A comparative analysis of car fleet efficiency evolution in Europe and Australia insights on policy influence.

Regulators worldwide introduce measures to improve energy consumption and reduce greenhouse emissions of road vehicles. The present study focuses on the impacts of passenger car carbon dioxide (CO) and fuel efficiency measures, attempting to evaluate their effectiveness using vehicle and fleet modelling. To obtain a robust counterfactual result, two regions are compared as a case study: the European Union (EU), where CO emissions have been regulated for over fifteen years, and Australia, a region that recently introduced such a policy element.

Benchmarking the driver acceleration impact on vehicle energy consumption and CO emissions.

The study proposes a methodology for quantifying the impact of real-world heterogeneous driving behavior on vehicle energy consumption, linking instantaneous acceleration heterogeneity and CO emissions. Data recorded from 20 different drivers under real driving are benchmarked against the Worldwide Harmonized Light Vehicle Test Cycle (WLTC), first by correlating the speed cycle with individual driver behavior and then by quantifying the CO emissions and consumption. The vehicle-Independent Driving Style metric (IDS) is used to quantify acceleration dynamicity, introducing driving style stochasticity by means of probability distribution functions.