In the area of traffic education, environmental aspects are becoming more and more important. Every beginning driver should learn how to drive his vehicle in an ecological way. Hence a driving profile was developed to preserve the environment by minimising fuel consumption, exhaust gas and noise. This driving profile for urban areas includes several aspects concerning the handling of vehicle, the approach to obstacles in traffic flow, the perception of the surrounding traffic and the headway to the preceding vehicle. The effects of this driving behaviour, if adopted by many or all drivers on urban roads, were investigated by simulation. The microscopic simulation model, MISSION, was modified for simulating modified for simulating the new driving behaviour. The results show the effects of the aspects of the described driving behaviour on capacity, speed and number of acceleration and deceleration actions. It can be seen that some of these aspects lead to capacity reduction which means that with high volumes the effects on the environment may actually be worse. (A)
Abstract