Development of Kuala Lumpur driving cycle for the estimation of fuel consumption and vehicular emission

Driving cycles is a series of data points representing the speed of vehicle verses time sequence profile developed for certain road, route, specific area or city. Generally, driving cycle is used to estimate the fuel consumption (FC) and vehicular exhaust emission. The common factors that affected the FC and exhaust emission are the engine operating conditions such as cold start, low engine loads and high engine loads which are found during actual driving. The research presents the measurement and analysis of engine conditions based on actual driving behaviours in an attempt to formulate representative driving cycle for Kuala Lumpur. The methodology used for this research is adapted from the Worldwide Harmonized Light-duty Test Cycle (WLTC) introduced by the working party on pollution and energy (GRPE) under the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE). This research covered a wide area of paved road in Kuala Lumpur, about 62.34% by surveying the road condition on the eight selected routes. The used of On-board Diagnostic (OBD) and Global Positioning System (GPS) equipment are used to record the vehicle travel speed during data collection activity. The driving characteristics are then analysed from speed profile and its target statistic parameters are defined to develop representative driving cycle. The characteristics of the newly developed driving cycle are compared to the European driving cycle which is currently being used in Malaysia for new vehicle certification and registration. Therefore, the correlation of FC is derived to indicate the impacts of real-world driving conditions relative to domestic conditions.