Real-Road Driving and Fuel Consumption Characteristics of Public Buses in Southern China

In this paper, the annual data of 40 public buses fueled with diesel in four cities in southern China have been analyzed for investigating the driving and fuel consumption characteristics. Results showed that the best traffic condition and smoothest driving style were obtained in Fuzhou, which was exact opposite to the results in Wuhan. And the driving characteristics of each city was weakly affected by the season’s variation. The fuel consumption characteristics of the public buses in different cities were studied by the method based on VSP (Vehicle Specific Power) model, and the fuel consumption factors in different cities and seasons have been given. The main factors influenced the fuel consumption characteristics could be summarized by the variations of driving characteristics and air conditioning using. The high fuel consumption was concentrated in region with low vehicle velocity range of 0 ∼ 10 km/h, and the proportion of this vehicle range directly affected the average fuel consumption level. The effect of the air conditioning using on fuel consumption was especially obvious in summer and winter, and the using of air conditioning would increase about 10% of the total vehicle fuel consumption.