Providing eco-driving feedback to corporate car drivers: what impact does a smartphone application have on their fuel efficiency?

  • Authors:
  • Johannes Tulusan;Thorsten Staake;Elgar Fleisch

  • Affiliations:
  • St. Gallen University, St. Gallen, Switzerland;Bits to Energy Lab, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland;Bits to Energy Lab, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 2012 ACM Conference on Ubiquitous Computing
  • Year:
  • 2012

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.00

Visualization

Abstract

The personal transport sector constitutes an important target of energy conservation and emission reduction programs. In this context, eco-feedback technologies that provide information on the driving behavior have shown to be an effective means to stimulate changes in driving in favor of both, reduced costs and environmental impact. This study extends the literature on eco-feedback technologies as it demonstrates that a smartphone application can improve fuel efficiency even under conditions where monetary incentives are not given, i.e. where the drivers do not pay for fuel. The field test, which took place with 50 corporate car drivers, demonstrates an improvement in the overall fuel efficiency by 3.23%. The theoretical contribution underlines the assumption that context-related feedback can favorably influence behavior even without direct financial benefits for the agent. Given the large share of corporate cars, findings are also of high practical importance and motivate future research on eco-driving feedback technologies.