The Long-Term Effectiveness of Eco-Driving Training: A Pilot Study

Eco-driving has been proven to have a great benefit in reducing vehicle fuel consumption in many developed countries. However, the potential of eco-driving on energy savings in China is not very clear. Taking three taxi drivers from the Beijing Beiqi Taxi Group Company as examples, the petrol consumption, travel distance and many other factors influencing vehicle fuel use before and after eco-driving training were collected through survey forms. The short-term and long-term effect of eco-driving was compared. The results showed that, taking one month as the statistical cycle, the benefit of eco-driving in saving fuel consumption averaged 19.04%; while it reduced to 14.41% after four months from taking eco-driving training. Thus, drivers would partially regress back to less economically driving behaviors, thus resulting in lower fuel savings after sometime. This study laid a foundation to evaluate the benefits of eco-driving in saving energy use.