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The influence of street environments on fuel efficiency: insights from naturalistic driving
Wang, X.; Liu, C.; Kostyniuk, L.; Shen, Q. & Bao, S.
Abstract
Fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions
in the transportation sector are a result of a “three-legged
stool”: fuel types, vehicle fuel efficiency, and
vehicle miles travelled (VMT). While there is a substantial
body of literature that examines the connection between the
built environment and total VMT, few studies have focused
on the impacts of the street environment on fuel consumption
rate. Our research applied structural equation
modeling to examine how driving behaviors and fuel efficiency
respond to different street environments. We used a
rich naturalistic driving dataset that recorded detailed
driving patterns of 108 drivers randomly selected from the
Southeast Michigan region. The results show that, some
features of compact streets such as lower speed limit,
higher intersection density, and higher employment density
are associated with lower driving speed, more speed
changes, and lower fuel efficiency; however, other features
such as higher population density and higher density of
pedestrian-scale retails improve fuel efficiency. The aim of
our study is to gain further understanding of energy and
environmental outcomes of the urban areas and the roadway
infrastructure we plan, design, and build and to better
inform policy decisions concerned with sustainable
transportation.
Keywords
Street environments; Fuel efficiency; Structural equation modeling; Naturalistic driving
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