Modeling of vehicle fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emission in road transport

This paper proposes a new mechanical model for vehicle fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions considering different types of vehicles and their various features, two engine models, namely, gasoline and diesel, different roads, a range of renewable and non-renewable fuels and wind effect. The aim is to investigate the effectiveness of new parameters such as temperature, driving style, asphalt efficiency and fuel efficiency. The new proposed model is based on top-down mechanical model which has five parts including the energy consumed due to loss of gravity, acceleration, rolling resistance, aerodynamic resistance and cornering losses. Moreover, the proposed model investigates three types of tolling systems. The validity of this model is also examined by analyzing the parameters in the range [-10%, +10%] and correlation coefficients between the new parameters and five parts of the mechanical model. The results indicate that: 10% improvement in driving style in cars reduces 8.81% of fuel consumption; cold and warm temperature ranges increase fuel consumption by 5.57% and 1.71%, respectively; the PCC type of asphalt has 6.21% less fuel efficiency than AC type; and, the fuel consumption of car using gasoline fuel is 6.84 times higher than biodiesel fuel. The findings show that the carbon dioxide emission and fuel consumption rates increase as we move from free-flow system to electronic tolling system, and then, to the traditional tolling one. Moreover, the fuel consumption in the electronic tolling system for every fuel is twice less than the the amount obtained in the traditional tolling system. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.