The yawning gap between test cycle and real world emissions is front page news these days thanks to some very poor judgement from someone – no doubt just a junior technician! – at VW. At the Energy Saving Trust it’s nearly ten years since we spotted that driver training was the piece of the jigsaw that we were missing. Up until then our work promoting cleaner transport had focused on cleaner vehicles and mileage management. But it’s abundantly clear that regardless of what a vehicle achieves on paper, its real world emissions depend a great deal on the driver.
In terms of ‘air quality’ emissions (i.e. emissions that directly affect human health), the big emerging story over the last couple of years has been that in real world driving even new diesels still frequently emit far more particulate matter (PM) and oxides of nitrogen (NOx) than they’re supposed to. Five or six times the official figure is common across the board, not just with VW who have acknowledged fitting the now notorious ‘defeat devices’ to some of their diesel engines. For fuel consumption and CO2 (the two go hand-in-hand) the story is similar: in the mid-2000s we at the Energy Saving Trust had robust data from a fuel card supplier showing that fleet vehicles’ fuel consumption and CO2 was approximately 15% higher than the manufacturers’ official claims. The International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) reports that if you look back a bit further to 2001 the gap between test cycle and real world emissions was a more modest 8%. But according to the ICCT, whose findings are based on reported actual fuel consumption from more than half a million vehicles, by 2013 the average gap between official and real world fuel consumption and CO2 had grown to a massive 38%.
So what’s to be done? Clearly there’s a need for a more representative test cycle and the good news is that this is on its way, with the coming of the Worldwide Harmonized Light Vehicles Test Procedures (WLTP). This is being developed by the EU, Japan, India and the UNECE and is expected to be in use from around 2017. It also seems clear that however good this test cycle may be, it needs to be backed up by some form of significant real world emission testing programme. But in the short term, encouraging more efficient driving techniques is the best way to narrow or close that gap between vehicles’ stated and actual fuel consumption.
The Energy Saving Trust’s early involvement with ecodriving focused on information and advice but after evaluating various approaches we concluded that if you want to influence a driver’s behaviour, there’s no substitute for on-the-road training. The other conclusion we reached early on is that if training just focuses on efficiency, a driver can make good progress in a short time. So between 2009 and 2014 we trained nearly 40,000 fleet drivers, each with just over an hour’s ecodriving training. Drivers saw an average of approximately 14% reduction in fuel consumption on the day of training and long term studies show between three and 6.2% savings in the 12 months following training.
The key to effective short duration ecodriving training is focusing on the few main points that make a big difference to most drivers. In practical terms this means better anticipation to avoid unnecessary acceleration and braking; early gear changes when accelerating; stepping off the accelerator as early as possible but remaining in gear when decelerating; and slowing down at higher speeds. It’s certainly not rocket science but our experience is that you can talk about these techniques in a room full of drivers all apparently understanding and agreeing, but then get those same drivers out on the road with a good fleet trainer and you’ll still find there’s plenty of room for improvement! Crucially, that improvement comes very quickly with a bit of coaching.
Ecodriving also brings safety benefits: There’s good evidence from the UK and from Germany of around 30% reduction in ‘at fault’ accidents and 18% reduction in total accidents in the year following fleet ecodriving training even though in both cases the training was entirely focused on efficiency, not safety. The explanation for this is simple, since better anticipation is the key to both safety and efficiency. In fact there’s a lot of crossover between ecodriving and advanced driver training and if you want to try to maximise the long term savings following training I’d suggest trying to convey the idea that ecodriving is about being a better driver, rather than about doing the right or the worthy thing.
At the Energy Saving Trust we now run a subsidised fleet ecodriving scheme in England funded by the Department for Transport (http://ift.tt/1NSlCJP). We no longer train drivers ourselves, but most of the country’s main fleet training companies are involved in the scheme and they claim a subsidy from us for each driver trained. The scheme has been going for 18 months and is working well. Its key strength is the diversity of training available, from stand-alone short-duration ecodriving training, to longer training usually focusing on safety but also including our requirements on efficiency.
Returning to the figures mentioned earlier, there’s quite a gap between the 14% reduction in fuel consumption on the day of training and the 3 to 6.2% savings in the following year. Good fleet management can go a long way to ensuring a fleet is near the top of that range or perhaps exceeds it. At its core this means the fleet manager being on top of his or her vehicle data so that efficient drivers can be rewarded, perhaps financially, and poor drivers can be spotted and offered extra support or training. There are also some great technological solutions including telematics systems that give feedback to the driver, the fleet manager or both. Most telematics systems access the vehicle CANbus for data such as engine speed, throttle position, fuel consumption etc and combine this with location data provided by GPS. Some even add mapping data as an input, for example to advise the driver to lift off the accelerator if he’s approaching a junction at speed.
Training and technology are entirely complementary approaches to efficiency, since each addresses the other’s weakness: Technology doesn’t yet help a driver to read and anticipate other road users’ actions, nor can it understand, challenge and influence a driver’s assumptions and beliefs as effectively as a good trainer. But training suffers from fade, so if the technology is there consistently reminding the driver about efficient driving techniques that he’s been introduced to on a good training course, then this can be a powerful combination. And with the potential benefits of fewer accidents, reduced emissions and lower fuel bills there’s surely a strong case for investing in the two.
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