Overview
The aim of the study was to measure the effects of the education in environmental friendly driving that is included in the Swedish driver education for license class B on fuel consumption and a selection of driving behaviours that are typical for environmental friendly driving among drivers with license since half a year.
In this evaluation of the environmental components of the Swedish driver education class B, license holders that obtained a license since half a year have been asked how much education in environmental friendly driving they have received. Their answers have been used to define a group of 25 drivers with much such education (group M) and a group of 25 drivers with little or none such education (group L). These drivers have driven an instrumented car along a pre-defined road of 30 km where 12 parts were used to collect data about fuel consumption and a selection of different driving behaviours. As a reference, an expert/educator in environmental friendly driving “E” has also driven the same road as the others with the purpose of indicating what is possible to achieve.
Funding
Results
The results, based on a number of hypotheses, showed that:
- group M consumed less fuel than group L in total and on all the 12 sub-roads
- group M was driving with lower speed than group L in total and on all the 12 sub-roads group M generally used the brake less than group L on 4 of the 12 sub-roads
- group M used the brake less than group L when approaching a STOP sign
- group M used the clutch less frequent than group L on 1 of the 12 sub-roads
- group M used the clutch during a slightly shorter time than group L when approaching a STOP sign.
- group M was generally driving more often with zero consumption than group L on 5 of the 12 sub-roads
- group M was driving more often with zero consumption than group L when driving downhill
- group M was generally driving with lower average rpm than group L in total and on all 12 sub-roads.
- group M was driving less with rpm above 3000 than group L when accelerating after a STOP sign
- in none of the measured behaviours, none of group L or M reached the level of E
- all the hypotheses except one (about average speed) were correctly formulated since E performed better than both L and M
- the hypothesis about average speed was probably incorrectly formulated since E was driving faster than M on most of the sub-roads.