Is the new Real Driving Emission methodology really representative of people’s driving behavior ? Study case of the driving patterns of the citizens from Brussels

Details

Supervisors

Contino, Francesco

Faculty

Ecole polytechnique de Louvain

Degree label

Master [120] : ingénieur civil mécanicien

Abstract

Car trips are part of everyday life for a lot of Belgians. Car fleet in Belgium represents 5.813 millions vehicle in 2019 and this transportation mode represents 74 percent of the distance travelled by Belgians in 2017. Characterization of fuel economy and pollutants emissions has always been a challenge in order to compare ecological performances of cars. This is where standardized test cycles are making sense. These are realised in laboratory, like for WLTC or NEDC, or with random road trips following criteria like the RDE. The RDE criteria specify conditions on speed, duration, distance, accelerations, temperatures etc. These criteria have been applied to 899 trips drove in Brussels in the frame of a master thesis last year. The aim was to find if RDE testing represents driving patterns in Brussels. Out of the total samples of trips, all of them were too short in distance and/or duration. 30 percent were stopping too much, and 12 percent had too high or too low average speed. The conclusion was that while RDE represents driving behaviours in Brussels for acceleration and mean speed, its prescription on minimal distance is too long. This conclusion arose a question: if RDE testing methodolology does not fit data from trips driven in Brussels, what is a typical car trip in Brussels? The aim of this thesis is to compute a test cycle reproducing driving behaviours in Brussels. WLTP building methodology is used.