Development of Malaysian urban drive cycle using vehicle and engine parameters

Vehicles travelling in actual urban areas are mostly in idle, low or medium speeds, which reflects engine part-load condition. These regularly visited engine conditions, in reality affect the fuel economy during actual driving. Thus, understanding the characteristics of the actual driving conditions will enable many other benefits besides legislation. This paper presents the development of a preliminary Malaysian urban drive cycle with the inclusion of the engine parameters and characteristics, acquired through an actual urban driving on numerous urban roads in Malaysia that represents the actual consumer’s daily driving experience. The actual engine parameters and its characteristics are integrated into the assessment measures in an attempt to formulate representable drive cycle and fuel consumption data. The initial drive cycle is composed of 17 sequences selected from the actual on-the-road conditions to represent the Malaysian urban driving. The average fuel economy of the established Malaysian urban drive cycle was then measured on a test bench using the same engine from the vehicle. The recorded fuel economy with Malaysian urban drive cycle is 8.5% below the actual Malaysian urban driving which is closer estimation to the actual driving compared to the current in-practice NEDC which shows to be 43.1% below the actual Malaysian urban driving. Thus, Malaysian urban drive cycle is better in representing the Malaysian urban driving conditions compared to the NEDC in terms of the average fuel economy measurements.