Analysis of Driving Style and Its Influence on Fuel Consumption for the City of Quito, Ecuador: A Data-Driven Study

The constant increase in vehicles and their consequent production of pollutant emissions from mobile sources is a global predicament. In response, efforts are underway to mitigate fuel consumption. This metric is influenced not only by the vehicle type and fuel choice but also by strategic decisions such as maintenance, route selection, and driver behavior. Driving style is a parameter that is often ignored but has great repercussions on energy costs. Moreover, Ecuador lacks studies on driver behavior in real conditions. This study conducted dynamic tests to gather data through a data logger device. Subsequently, the collected data underwent a preprocessing stage to extract relevant features. These predictors were then employed to train a decision tree model for discerning between normal and aggressive driving styles. Our findings reveal that during urban driving, the aggressive style results in an average consumption of approximately 15% higher than the normal style. In rural settings, this difference is around 13%, with aggressive driving consuming 0.644 l/h more. However, during highway driving, no significant difference in average fuel consumption was observed between the two driving styles.