An exploratory analysis comparing a stochastic driving cycle to California's regulatory cycle

Abstract As the fundamental building block of the emissions estimation process, a driving cycle needs to be representative of real-world driving behavior. The driving cycle construction method becomes crucial for generating a representative driving cycle. In this paper, we revisit the Unified Cycle's (i.e., the LA92 driving cycle) construction method. The California Air Resources Board's Unified Cycle used a “microtrips” approach, a speed–acceleration frequency distribution plot, and a quasi-random selection mechanism to build the driving cycle. There is concern that the Unified Cycle does not reflect the true driving patterns due to the identified flaws in the construction methodology. Treating a driving trace as a stochastic process, we construct a new driving cycle (LA01) with the same driving data originally used to build the Unified Cycle. We then compare the two driving cycles with the sample data set with respect to the durations and intensities of the modal events. The new driving cycle is found to better replicate the modal events observed in the sample data. A comparison of average road power values between the sample data, LA01, and the Unified Cycle also confirms the effect of fine-scale driving on emissions. These differences result from the different construction approaches and can be expected to affect emissions inventory estimation.