Modeling Real Cycles Using Driving Cycle Software to Analyze the Influence of Road Traffic Characteristics on the Emission of Different Types of Vehicles
Authors: Constantin Nitoiu , Corneliu Cofaru , Virginia Popescu 
Published: November 2024

Air pollution represents one of the most complex problems of the modern industrialized world, as, practically, all sectors of human activity can be sources of polluting emissions and greenhouse gases. In this context, traffic must be remembered as having a significant contribution to this, although active and passive technologies have been implemented to reduce fuel consumption and emissions, but the increase in the number of vehicles in traffic has almost canceled these reductions. Air quality in urban areas is generally monitored with specialized equipment in fixed measuring stations without a selective analysis of the origin of the pollutants, so when the tolerance limits of the pollutants are exceeded, the car is generally unfairly penalized, due to the fact that the traffic road is a source of pollution visible to anyone compared to other sources, such as: industry, agriculture, energy, domestic heating, construction, road infrastructure maintenance operations, and other ones. This paper primarily presents the influence of different classic propulsion systems in relation to the geometry of the road infrastructure and the characteristics of urban road traffic where there is a high frequency of changes in the dynamics of vehicle movement on the levels of polluting emissions and fuel. In addition, the influence of various factors on emissions and fuel consumption in extra-urban road traffic conditions is also examined. The objective of the research carried out and presented in this paper clarifies some aspects regarding the participation of motor vehicles in air pollution and targeted three aspects with different weights in terms of importance:
1) to collect real data on fuel consumption and emissions of cars in traffic in the city of Brașov (RO) and its surroundings;
2) to gain insight into the relationship between fuel consumption and emissions, on the one hand, and road traffic characteristics, on the other hand;
3) to gather the necessary data for the realization of a real road traffic simulation tool incorporated in a test driving cycle for bench testing in the laboratory by which one can evaluate the behavior of any car in traffic and compare it with other vehicles and, through simulating traffic on different driving conditions, fuel consumption and emission levels through road traffic management interventions could be reduced. This phase represents the essence of this paper as it is based on the data collected in real urban and extra-urban traffic conditions by using the &quot;Driving Cycle&quot; software available at the test bench, consequenly, the urban and extra-urban test driving cycles containing the maps will be modeled (speed, time, speed change, road gradient, etc.) identically to the data recorded in real traffic. By identifying routes that represent the characteristics of traffic flows and (traffic volume, traffic light phasing, regulatory strategies and so on) representing traffic in urban and extra-urban areas and by transposing these routes in test cycles in the laboratory, it will be possible to analyze the behavior of any type of vehicle in terms of fuel consumption and traffic emissions.