The amount of energy which can be saved by using driver advisory systems depends heavily on infrastructure, timetable, rolling stock, operating conditions - and above all on the level of experience of the drivers. Therefore, the German railway undertaking Ostdeutsche Eisenbahngesellschaft (ODEG) has started a trial with of the advisory system "InLineFAS". The trial takes place on their most frequented regional express trains. Heavily varying passenger volumes during the day and along the lines are the big challenges for the system in order to ensure maximum energy saving and high punctuality at the same time.  The "InLineFAS" system is part of the companies' traffic management and passenger counting system which contains high quality statistical operation data that is used to obtain an optimal configuration of the advisory system module.[Leer más]

On 11 and 12 December 2013 the ACTUATE consortium came together for a successful mid-term partner meeting in Salzburg, Austria. In addition, external experts from other EU-funded projects in the field of professional driver training participated in an ACTUATE meeting and contributed to a vivid discussion and inspiring knowledge exchange.  After a short welcome note by the host Salzburg AG, day one began with the presentation of the first of a series of ACTUATE e-learning modules. Within ACTUATE individual e-learning courses will be developed for hybrid buses, trams and trolleybuses. Over the next months all partners will integrate the e-learning courses into their in-house campaigns aiming to encourage drivers to use their newly acquired eco-driving skills in their daily routine.Also the partners reported on first evaluation results regarding training quality and energy savings achieved during the training sessions and in daily operation. Test drives conducted in real traffic as part of the practical trainings, showed the potential of safe eco-driving regarding the reduction of energy consumption: in Salzburg, on average 20 per cent energy was saved for trolleybuses and 13...[Leer más]

A Canadian app developer has conducted thousands of test drives with the all-electric Nissan Leaf to examine the influence of cold temperatures on the range. No doubt, cold temperatures have a measurable negative effect on the range of an electric vehicle. More surprising however is the effect of the driving style on battery range. While the average range during the test rides at 0° C was 102 km, the best driver achieved astonishing 170 km – definitely another proof for the importance of eco-driving in clean, electric vehicles. Here you can find detailed information on the rest rides and results .Sources: www.fleetcarma.com, www.electrive.net.[Leer más]

Obviously safe eco-driving is not only an important when driving clean vehicles, but also for conventionally fuelled buses in public transport. Also, safe eco-driving has more to it than saving energy or fuel – it also about safety. Salvatore Vancardo, an active bus driver of Duisburg’s public transport operator DVG (Duisburger Verkehrsgesellschaft AG), has proven he is among the best drivers in Germany when it comes to handling a huge bus. He has won the first place at the National Championships in road-safety training, which took place in Duisburg and was organised by the association of professional drivers in Germany (BDBK- Bund Deutscher Berufs-Kraftfahrer) together with their associated umbrella organisation BdBV. By winning the national championship Vancardo is automatically qualified for the World Championships 2014 in Poland.In five categories more than 100 bus drivers completed two different obstacle courses. The challenges resembled situations professional bus drivers are facing in their daily routine. David Karpathy, Chief Human Resources Officer at DVG, of encourages his drivers to apply safe driving features in their daily work: “We are very happy that our drivers...[Leer más]

Bottrop’s municipal waste management and city cleaning company (BEST) is now using a driver assistance system in 42 vehicles now. The systems alerts the driver if fuel consumption rises above a predetermined threshold. Thereby BEST not only intends to significantly cut down fuel consumption but also to make a positive contribution to the protection of the environment. Once the systems are installed and running they will save some thousand liters of diesel each year. With the support of the electronic system BEST drivers are expected to adopt a driving style that optimizes fuel consumption and tear and wear of the vehicle 42 vehicles will be equipped with the new driver assistance system, which constitute about 60 percent of BEST’s fleet of garbage collection trucks. “We won’t equip all of vehicles with the new assistance system since some of our vehicles are just too old. Equipping them with this new technology just does not make sense”, says BEST board member Uwe Wolters. Positive contribution environmental protectionBEST expects to recoup the investment costs for the electronic driver assistance system in just one year. A six month test run has already produced promising...[Leer más]

Driver Advisory Systems (DAS) are shortterm solution to reduce fuel consumption of diesel-hauled trains. The system "InLine-FAS" was successfully tested on the regional network of Veolia Sachsen-Anhalt GmbH. The articles describes the data requirements for such a test and the operational setting under which the system was applied. The pilot was carried out without the need to access interfaces ot the vehicles control syste using a Smartphone with integrated GPS positioning module. The obtained  saving approximately 5% measured at the fuel station has convinced the railway undertaking to use the DAS in regular operations as a module of their existing traffic management and controll system. Article EI= Eisenbahningenieur September 2012 from Dr.- Ing. Thomas Albrecht, TU Dresden, Fakultät Verkehrswissenschaften "Friedrich List" Dipl. Phys. Matthias Pathe, Projektleiter Interautomation Deutschland GmbH, Berlin  [Leer más]

Not only in the European Union, but also in Asia and worldwide Eco-Driving is an important issue in reducing the ecological footprint and increasing energy efficiency. During the national Energy-Saving Publicity Week in China, Deutsche Gesellschaft für internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) conducted an eco-driving training for truck drivers together with the Jiangsu Transport Administration Bureau in the Wuxi Jiangsu Province.Similar to the ACTUATE trainings, the training in China consisted of a theoretical as well as a practical part and was conducted using a "train the trainer" approach in order to maximise the spread of knowledge on eco-driving. In general, GIZ expects that (diesel) fuel consumption and CO2 emissions can be reduced by 5 to 10 percent when applying the eco-driving techniques. Considering the rapidly growing market for ebuses and other public transport modes in Asia, there is a vast take-up potential for the eco-driving trainings developed within the ACTUATE project. [Leer más]