Development of an urban driving cycle in the Lima Metropolitan Area, Peru

As pollution becomes a more significant problem worldwide, due to the generalized used of vehicles powered by internal combustion engines, driving cycles are instruments used to evaluate and control both emissions and fuel consumption. Nonetheless, the most common driving cycles, applied for emissions studies, were developed for a particular region, aiming to represent only the driving reality of this area. As a result, the behavior that a vehicle would have when operated on a particular region cannot always be accurately modelled using these common cycles. In order to adequately study and model the emissions and fuel consumption these vehicles would have; it is necessary to possess a driving cycle developed for that particular area. The Lima Metropolitan Area, in Peru, concentrates the major part of the national vehicle fleet, and its characterized by extremely dense traffic. The result of this conditions is a high level of air pollutants resulting from the vehicles used in this area. In spite of what was mentioned above, this region does not have an emissions control procedure, starting with a lack of a representative driving cycle. This paper presents a methodology to collect real driving data and construct and evaluate a driving cycle for light vehicles (vehicles weighing less than 3 500 kilograms) fueled by gasoline, based on these data, applied to the Lima Metropolitan Area.