A pilot program launched in Denver last week aims to show drivers how their habits effect greenhouse gas emissions by tracking how much time they spend idling and how much extra fuel they use due to sudden changes in speed. Real time wireless monitoring will send data from city vehicles to an online database that can be analyzed to determine low- and high-emitting driving habits.

While it sounds a bit Orwellian, it will be interesting to see whether and how the City can convert this information about driving behavior into actual behavior change and emissions reductions.

According to the press release and Denver Business Journal:

“Driving Change,” a $400,000 program launched last week, will install equipment developed by Denver-based Cartasite Inc. in individual cars to track idling and fuel consumption caused by speed changes via wireless connectivity to a database developed by the Enviance corporation. Rapid acceleration and hard braking can lower gas mileage by as much as 20 percent, and idling is believed to consume one cup of fuel every five minutes.

The program’s sponsor, EnCana Oil & Gas (USA) Inc., hopes drivers will learn from the analysis, change their driving behavior and reduce the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by their vehicles. The cumulative effect of idling is estimated to result in the burning of 1.4 billion gallons of gasoline, emitting 13 million tons of CO2

The program expects to have the equipment, an accelerometer and a modem, installed in 400 privately owned and Denver-owned public cars and trucks by May — including Mayor John Hickenlooper’s car and the private car of Jeff Wojahn, president of EnCana. “Driving Change can help city employees and Denver residents reduce fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions simply by changing the way we drive,” Hickenlooper said.

According to the sponsors, while the pilot program does not directly measure greenhouse gas emissions, it will attempt to measure the environmental impact of driving styles for the first time ever.

I hope they account for the fact that hybrid vehicles (of which the City has a large inventory) actually get better mileage from rapid acceleration and braking - hybrid technology takes these “bad” driving habits and uses them to advantage to charge the car’s battery, leading to higher mileage over time. The challenge for city policy-makers trying to optimize mileage would be to encourage these habits in hybrids and discourage them in other vehicles.

Idling, on the other hand, wastes gas no matter what kind of car you do it in. New technology being installed at truckstops nationally (including one in Commerce City) allows truckers to maintain power in their cabs for overnight stays without keeping the truck running all night. Though city laws exist prohibiting it, city fleet vehicles kept idling on the job for the AC or heat value or simply a “quick start” are legion, and no such tech fix exists to address this problem.

Ultimately, emissions reductions from the city vehicle fleet will have a negligible impact on total GHG emissions citywide (all City operations, including the fleet, accounts for fewer than 2% of total citywide emissions) but if successful the Cartasite/ Enviance project could lead to adoption of the technology for other corporate and institutional fleets, leading to reduced emissions and gas savings over time. As long as the drivers of the vehicles know that big brother is “watching”, I’m all for it.