Ecodriving Performances of Human Drivers in a Virtual and Realistic World * Olivier Orfila 1 , Dominique Gruyer 1 , Vincent Judalet 1 , Marc Revilloud 1 Abstract— In this study, results of an ecodriving challenge that took place during the Paris Motor Show in 2014 are presented. The principle of this challenge was to drive a simulated passenger car as far as possible with a limited quantity of energy (15 cL). The experimental setup, constituted of the SiVIC software, an Oculus Rift Helmet and a fuel consumption model, is also detailed. 1211 trips of visitors were validated during the 17 days of the event. Results showed that high acceleration without kickdown is desirable and that constant speed can lead to significant reduction in energy consumption. Next work will concentrate on improving the simulation and the scenario to increase the immersion realism and the ecodriving behavior sensitivity. I. INTRODUCTION Research interest in Eco-driving is growing due to its potential to reduce fuel consumption, CO2 and particles emission [2], [3], [4]. A wide range of eco-driving strategies have been proposed by traffic psychologists, engineers and traffic simulation researchers [6], [12], [14]. Despite its popularity, there is poor and inconsistent research evidence regarding the effects of different type of eco-driving in- structions on fuel consumption. Eco-driving instructions are very context sensitive and have different performance in different situations. Rakotonirainy et al, [17], demonstrated that standard instructions do not provide the expected 20% fuel consumption reduction on an automatic car in an urban environment. Then, several methods are used to generate optimal commands instead of the driver [7], [9], [10], [11]. These algorithms, relying on optimization procedures, are then devoted to ecological driver assistance systems or au- tomated driving vehicles. However, optimization procedures often lack of human factors and tend to be unacceptable for human drivers or passengers. For instance, practised acceler- ations and jerks are not sufficiently taken into account and the vehicle passengers feel discomfort. Several researchers have already dealt with the subject of efficient driving technics [8], [5] but none of this study had precisely defined the acceleration and speed profiles resulting in the minimum fuel use. In this paper, we propose to use a specific driving sim- ulator to better understand how drivers successfully reduce energy consumption. Conclusions of this study can then be used as guidelines for designing new optimization procedures for optimal commands of passenger cars. More important, this study presents a method that can be used to validate ecodriving technics in various driving conditions. This paper *This work was supported by IFSTTAR 1 Authors are with the French Institute of Science and Technology for transport, development and networks COSYS-LIVIC, 77 rue des Chantiers, F-78000 VERSAILLES olivier.orfila@ifsttar.fr has two main original parts. On the first hand, it proposes an original method of gathering data from a driving simulator during a major international car event in Paris. On the second hand, the simulator itself is a combination of several innovative elements such as a true immersion using a Head Mounted Display (HMD), a simplified but precise fuel use modeling and simulation software to link them all. All these contributions have been tuned with on-road measurements to improve reality of the scenarios. The here presented application is focused on the optimization of the covered distance by a driver with a limited amount of fuel. This scenario is done with a real car and a real driver immersed in a 3D virtual modeling of the real Satory test track. The results obtained from this simple eco-driving scenario have allowed to validate our architecture’s capabilities. In the remainder of this paper, methodology is presented in section 2. Then, the global experimental setup with SiVIC, RTMaps, the fuel consumption model, the hardware and finally the interconnection between these platforms to obtain our desired eco-driving prototyping environment is described in section 3. Section 4 is dedicated to the presentation of Results while section 5 presents the discussion. Finally, we will conclude and present some perspectives in section 6. II. METHODOLOGY As the objective of this paper is to better understand how drivers efficiently reduce energy use while driving, it has been decided to collect a wide dataset of speed profiles. In this case, simulation is often a cost effective and reproducible solution. The idea was to design a simple driving simulator and to use it during the Paris Motor Show 2014. This event, gathering more than one million visitors every year, was a good opportunity to reach our objectives. However, this event raised several challenges. Firstly, an efficient driving simulator was needed in a limited space. It has then be decided to use an Oculus Rift Helmet as main display in order to increase the simulation realism. Secondly, it was required to attract a lot of visitors that were coming to see vehicles and not simulators. In order to attract them, a challenge has been designed. Its principle was for each driver to drive as far as possible with a limited quantity of fuel in the tank. The five best ecodrivers would receive a gift in the end of the event. Before each trial, the driver received the instruction to go as far as possible without leaving the road. Due to relative low resolution of the helmet, an instructor had to stay on the driver side to warn him about upcoming sharp curves.