Eco-routing: Comparing the fuel consumption of different routes between an origin and destination using field test speed profiles and synthetic speed profiles

Eco-routing is the identification of the most energy-efficient route for a vehicle to travel between two points and is offered as a way in which drivers can reduce fuel consumption and consequently reduce the carbon footprint of their journeys. This paper covers the first step in the process of investigating the impacts of digital map attributes on the calculation of an eco-route. A research tool is developed in which historical link speed data is used as a basis for replicating vehicle speed profiles, enabling the calculation of fuel costs per link. These fuel costs and speed profiles are validated by field test data. The results show that synthetic speed profiles created using the research tool differ from those measured in the field test. They also demonstrate that the characteristics of a route are influenced by location-based attributes, indicating that map attributes that are used to create more representative speed profiles do indeed have the potential to be used in the calculation of eco-routes.