Fuel consumption and gas emissions of an automatic transmission vehicle following simple eco-driving instructions on urban roads

Following eco-driving instructions can reduce fuel consumption between 5 and 20% on urban roads with manual cars. The majority of Australian cars have an automatic transmission gear box. It is therefore of interest to verify whether current eco-driving instructions are efficient for such vehicles. In this pilot study, participants (N = 3) drove an instrumented vehicle (Toyota Camry 2007) with an automatic transmission. Fuel consumption of the participants was compared before and after they received simple eco-driving instructions. Participants drove the same vehicle on the same urban route under similar traffic conditions. The authors found that participants drove at similar speeds during their baseline and eco-friendly drives, and reduced the level of their accelerations and decelerations during eco-driving. Fuel consumption decreased for the complete drive by 7%, but not on the motorway and inclined sections of the study. Gas emissions were estimated with the (Virginia Tech) VT-micro model, and emissions of the studied pollutants (carbon dioxide (CO₂), carbon monoxide, oxides of nitrogen and hydrocarbons) were reduced, but no difference was observed for CO₂ on the motorway and inclined sections. The difference for the complete lap is 3% for CO₂. The authors have found evidence showing that simple eco-driving instructions are efficient in the case of automatic transmission in an urban environment, but towards the lowest values of the spectrum of fuel consumption reduction from the different eco-driving studies.