ITS based methodology to reduce energy consumption and emissions

Global warming is currently one established fact threatening the survival of all life forms on planet earth. Although no one industry has been identified to be fully responsible for the greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions, it has become clear that the transportation industry is a key player in this global dilemma and that it has to be addressed. In the U.S, global warming has manifested itself as a financial problem and a potential solution. The U.S dependence on foreign petroleum has been weakening its economy and threatening its national security; which made improving the fuel economy of automobiles and reducing demand on fossil fuel a priority from both the economy and the global warming prospective. As a result, a new wave of environment-aware technology research has been spurred in the U.S targeting different areas of renewable energy and improved energy efficiency machinery. This paper falls into the second category, and it introduces a prototype design application to reduce emissions and to mitigate future global warming by giving appropriate consideration to travel time and expected vehicle performance in all type of plug in hybrid and electric vehicles. Previous studies revealed that aggressive driving is proportionally related to vehicle emissions. Providing vehicles with real time and predictive future traffic information can result in reducing energy consumption and thus GHG emissions. This paper proposes the use of the IntelliDrive and navigation system technologies to integrate energy, emission and travel time constrained algorithm to reduce emissions at traffic intersections (light and sign controlled). The proposed system will provide an advisory audible/visual output to the driver that recommends optimized route, drive and accessory load profiles for improving energy consumption, emission and travel time