Updated: Could cabbies become eco-driving ambassadors?

July 27, 2011 · Filed Under BrightFleet, Commercial Fleets, Community, Driver Performance, Eco-Driving, FuelClinic, LinkedIn, Twitter · 3 Comments

Source: http://www.businessgreen.com/

Taxi drivers are notorious for being independent thinkers and more than a little opinionated, but now a new study is seeking to harness those qualities and turn cabbies into fuel efficiency ambassadors, even floating the idea of financial incentives to those who promote green policies to their passengers.

A study being published this week by the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) is to act as the centrepiece of Shell’s Smarter Cab Drivers project, which is designed to encourage the widespread and long-term adoption of eco-driving across the UK.

Read the whole thing.

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Across Europe, Irking Drivers Is Urban Policy

July 23, 2011 · Filed Under Community, Eco-Driving, Europe, Governments, Reduced Traffic Congestion · Comment

Source: Smart Blog

While American cities are synchronizing green lights to improve traffic flow and offering apps to help drivers find parking, many European cities are doing the opposite: creating environments openly hostile to cars. The methods vary, but the mission is clear — to make car use expensive and just plain miserable enough to tilt drivers toward more environmentally friendly modes of transportation.

Cities including Vienna to Munich and Copenhagen have closed vast swaths of streets to car traffic. Barcelona and Paris have had car lanes eroded by popular bike-sharing programs. Drivers in London and Stockholm pay hefty congestion charges just for entering the heart of the city. And over the past two years, dozens of German cities have joined a national network of “environmental zones” where only cars with low carbon dioxide emissions may enter.

Likeminded cities welcome new shopping malls and apartment buildings but severely restrict the allowable number of parking spaces. On-street parking is vanishing. In recent years, even former car capitals like Munich have evolved into “walkers’ paradises,” said Lee Schipper, a senior research engineer at Stanford University who specializes in sustainable transportation.

Read the full article at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/27/science/earth/27traffic.html

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Does Eco-Driving make you a safer driver?

July 10, 2011 · Filed Under Commercial Fleets, Community, Do-It-Yourself, Driver Performance, Driver Performance Improvement, Eco-Driving, Motivations · Comment

Over at EcoModder there is a conversation asking “does hypermiling make you a safer driver“?

Hypermiling is a more extreme form of eco-driving, where the goal is to reduce fuel consumption to the lowest amount possible. Sometimes hypermilers make modifications to more than just their driving habits to accomplish their goals, they modify their cars aerodynamics, re-chip their vehicle computers, or use a variety of add-on technologies or fuel additives to help squeeze every yard from a gallon of fuel.

Sometimes hypermilers have been criticized for advocating certain techniques that do save fuel but may be illegal and dangerous – like rolling through stop-signs, or drafting large trucks. Most hypermilers do not engage in these kinds of techniques, realizing the cost of a ticket or accident is far costlier than any savings in fuel.

Eco-driving is distinct in that drivers do not generally make modifications to their vehicles, and abide by all of the “normal” rules of the road. Both techniques share many similar traits where drivers achieve a high degree of awareness of traffic patterns and timing of lights, as well as efficient acceleration with limited stopping. But hypermiling is generally considered the more extreme of the two, while eco-diving is more of an “every-mans” method for improving fuel mileage.

So, back to safety.

Several private fleet studies show that drivers with generally better fuel mileage rating are also among the safest drivers in large fleets. These same studies show that drivers who have the highest number preventable “incidents” are also drivers with the poorest fuel mileage scores. Most of these studies are done in larger commercial fleets that are understandably reticent to discuss actual accident rates publicly.

So there is a connection between fuel efficiency and safety. According to the current discussion at EcoModder, the same correlation appears to apply to those hypermilers who have commented so far.

What do you think?

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