In general, it is known that a vehicle's carbon dioxide emission or carbon footprint (E) is in proportion to its fuel consumption, and it has been shown that it can be appropriately quantified by three key factors: "Travel time T", "Travel distance D" and the variation in speed "Fluctuating vehicle speed". The Eco-Drive plug-in calculates fuel consumption and carbon footprint using a formula (1) based on results obtained from the UC-win/Road driving log.

E: Amount of CO2 discharged during travel time (kg-C)
T: Travel time (sec)
D: Travel distance (m)
K: The number of the speed measurement point
δk: When a speed is higher than at the previous point; 1 , Other case; 0
vk: Running speed at "K" point (m/sec)
Kc: Emission factor CO2 0.00231 kg-C/petrol (cc) (Ministry of Environment, 1999)

*1 T.Oguchi, M.Ktakura and M.Taniguchi" Carbon Dioxide emission model in actual urban road vehicular traffic conditions", Journal of Infrastructure Planning and Management (JSCE), No.695/IV-54,125-136,2002.1

1. During driving, speedometer, accelerator and brake condition, and fuel consumption are displayed on screen in real time, helping environmentally friendly driving.
2. Outputs driving log simultaneously and displays Eco-Drive Analysis Viewer.
3. Eco-Drive Analysis Viewer shows the figure of T: Travel time, D: Travel distance, Q: fuel consumption and E: carbon footprint. Also makes graphs of acceleration, speed, fuel consumption per hour, cumulative fuel consumption, carbon footprint per hour, cumulative carbon footprint.
4. Users can change each parameter in the evaluation formula of carbon footprint as well.
5. You can output the result as CSV file and use the result.
6. Besides Eco-Drive Analysis Viewer, it has a function of showing "Eco-Driving Ranking".
   It makes ranking based on fuel consumption and carbon footprint and displays the result.
   (In this case, the items shown are different from those shown in Eco-Drive Analysis Viewer.)

▲Eco-Drive Analysis Viewer

▲screen of Eco-Drive plug-in

▲"Eco-Drive" Ranking

A simple experiment was conducted to calculate the carbon footprint generated by sudden starting and stopping. A ‘virtual' car was driven through one of Forum 8's 3D City Models using the UC-win/Road 3D Virtual Reality software system with the Eco-Drive plug-in. The conditions were as follows; (1) Drive the same course of distance 1km, (2) Must stop at an intersection, (3) No speed limit, (4) Try several different type of driving from gentle to rough.

Conclusion:

Driving hard with sudden stops and starts results in an increase in both fuel consumption and carbon footprint. On the other hand, when driving more gently, the results of both fuel consumption and carbon footprint tend to decrease. Therefore, driving with less speed change is expected to reduce carbon footprint.