Influence of street characteristics, driver category and car performance on urban driving patterns

Driving patterns (i.e., speed, acceleration and choice of gears) influence exhaust emissions and fuel consumption. The aim here is to obtain a better understanding of the variables that affect driving patterns, by determining the extent they are influenced by street characteristics and/or driver-car categories. A data set of over 14,000 driving patterns registered in actual traffic is used. The relationship between driving patterns and recorded variables is analysed. The most complete effect is found for the variables describing the street environment: occurrence and density of junctions controlled by traffic lights, speed limit, street function and type of neighbourhood. A fairly large effect is found for car performance, expressed in terms of the power-to-mass ratio. For elderly drivers, the average speed systematically decreases for all street types and stop time systematically increases on arterials. The results have implications for the assessment of environmental effects through appropriate street categorisation in emission models, as well as the possible reduction of environmental effects through better traffic planning and management, driver education and car design.