Deriving urban driving patterns in Cleveland using GPS based household travel survey data will not only prove the applicability of travel data in deriving driving schedules, but also help planners understand the dynamics of driving in Cleveland when compared with other standard driving schedules (such as US06, LA4, New York City Cycle etc.,). Urban Cleveland’s central business district is multi-modal & experiences stop-n-go traffic situations during morning & afternoon peak periods. Better understanding the interactions of urban drivers in Cleveland will aid city planners and policy makers in making informed decisions.

Preliminary data obtained from the recent household travel survey conducted in NOACA’s 5 county planning region (Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake, Lorain, & Medina) contain GPS data logs from all road types across the region. Only data from urban roadways in Cleveland’s area is considered for this study. Data obtained from the household travel survey is processed to obtain speed, acceleration and grade of terrain at each time stamp. The vehicle specific power (VSP) of each vehicle under analysis is derived using empirical/mechanistic equations. The VSP is categorized into bins to develop Cleveland’s urban driving schedule for air quality planning purposes. The VSP is also compared with U.S.EPA’s standard urban driving schedules to assess the variability from standard observations.

The driving schedules developed as a part of this process will be an extremely useful input for USEPA’s Motor Vehicle Emissions Simulator (MOVES) model. The derivation of VSP and subsequent comparative analysis will provide driving behavior data and system interactions in a multi-modal environment.