Design and implementation of a portable electronic system for vehicle–driver–route activity measurement

This paper presents the autonomous, non-intrusive and universal electronic equipment PGAMS: Portable Global Activity Measurement System, which is able to simultaneously measure and synchronously register the treble driver–vehicle–route activity. It allows one to evaluate the direct effect that real road traffic conditions have on environmental pollution. Among the variables to be simultaneously measured are: (a) from vehicle activity: regime engine and temperature, fuel consumption, global position, instantaneous and average speed and acceleration, frontal and lateral inclination; (b) related to route features: weather conditions, slope and camber of the road, traffic density; and (c) derived from driver activity: clutch, throttle and brake pedal actions. The designed prototype can be on boarded in conventional or industrial vehicles, working in both urban and inter-urban conditions. The paper describes the integration with pollutant emissions meters. Besides, it includes experimental results carried out in real traffic conditions relating vehicle–driver–route activity with gasses emissions.