  The Effective Acceleration Model (EAM) predicts the Time-of-Arrival (ToA) of
the Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) driven shock and the average speed within the
sheath at 1 AU. The model is based on the assumption that the ambient solar
wind interacts with the interplanetary CME (ICME) resulting in constant
acceleration or deceleration. The upgraded version of the model (EAMv3),
presented here, incorporates two basic improvements: (a) a new technique for
the calculation of the acceleration (or deceleration) of the ICME from the Sun
to 1 AU and (b) a correction for the CME plane-of-sky speed. A validation of
the upgraded EAM model is performed via comparisons to predictions from the
ensemble version of the Drag-Based model (DBEM) and the WSA-ENLIL+Cone ensemble
model. A common sample of 16 CMEs/ICMEs, in 2013-2014, is used for the
comparison. Basic performance metrics such as the mean absolute error (MAE),
mean error (ME) and root mean squared error (RMSE) between observed and
predicted values of ToA are presented. MAE for EAM model was 8.7$\pm$1.6 hours
while for DBEM and ENLIL was 14.3$\pm$2.2 and 12.8$\pm$1.7 hours, respectively.
ME for EAM was -1.4$\pm$2.7 hours in contrast with -9.7$\pm$3.4 and
-6.1$\pm$3.3 hours from DBEM and ENLIL. We also study the hypothesis of
stronger deceleration in the interplanetary (IP) space utilizing the EAMv3 and
DBEM models. In particularly, the DBEM model perform better when a greater
value of drag parameter, of order of a factor of 3, is used in contrast to
previous studies. EAMv3 model shows a deceleration of ICMEs at greater
distances, with a mean value of 0.72 AU.
