Management of road speed sectioning to lower vehicle energy consumption
Résumé
Efforts to limit climate change should concern the transportation sector which is responsible for roughly a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions. Aside from vehicle's technical progress and driver eco-driving awareness, road infrastructure has a role to play in this environmental aim. At the project stage, the design of roads can avoid energy losses linked to marked ramps, but afterwards, during the use phase, road management can be a lever too. In this use phase framework, our paper is focused on energy saving that can be achieved by managing speed sectioning. The key point is to ensure consistency between vehicle dynamics, road longitudinal profile and speed policy. Indeed, eco-driving could be impeded if a limiting speed sign is encountered on a steep slope or in a sharp turn. In such a situation the speed sign will be qualified as misplaced. Mechanical braking has then to be used instead of simple natural deceleration. In 2018 the French government lowered authorized speed on secondary roads, from 90 to 80 km/h, with road safety as the primary motivation. In order to assess energy impact of speed-sectioning for these two speed limits, experiments have been carried out in four experimental sites. Furthermore criterion and dissipated energy computation have been developed. The developed energy computation yields to determine the expected fuel economy for the entire traffic over a day on a selected route or network. As a result, over consumption for a misplaced speed sign can reach up to 40 liters of fuel per day with an approaching speed of 80 km/h and 50 liters of fuel per day with an approaching speed of 90 km/h according to traffic data. Significant energy savings could therefore be achieved by sign placement optimization.
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