UNDERSTANDING HOW ECODRIVING PUBLIC EDUCATION CAN RESULT IN REDUCED FUEL USE AND GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS

摘要

Ecodriving, the concept of changing driving behavior and vehicle maintenance to impact fuelconsumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in existing vehicles, has gained recentprominence in North America. One ecodriving strategy involves public education throughInternet-based information dissemination. This paper presents the results of a controlled statedresponsestudy conducted with approximately 100 University of California, Berkeley faculty,staff, and students, assessing the effectiveness of static ecodriving web-based information. Acomparison of the experimental and control groups found that exposure to ecodrivinginformation influenced people’s driving behavior and maintenance practices. The experimentalgroup’s distributional shift was statistically significant, particularly for key practices including:lower highway cruising speed, driving behavior adjustment, and proper tire inflation. Within theexperimental group (N = 51), fewer respondents significantly changed their maintenancepractices (16%) than the majority that altered some driving practices (71%); this suggestsintentional altering of driving behavior is easier than planning better maintenance practices. Acomparison of before- and after-surveys found that 57% of the experimental group improvedtheir ecodriving behavior, while 43% made no change or worsened. Key characteristics of thedrivers that improved include: being female, living in smaller households, and owning a newercar with higher fuel economy. While it was evident that not everyone modifies their behavior asa result of reviewing the website, even small shifts in behavior due to inexpensive informationdissemination could be deemed cost effective in reducing fuel consumption and emissions.