Eco driving for Ghent employees
Forty-five employees are currently taking an intensive eco driving course. The Ghent City Council wants to reduce the city's fuel consumption and the CO2 emissions. The aim is also to decrease the number of accidents that occur by acquiring a defensive driving attitude.
Drivers who regular drive a service vehicle and cover a lot of mileage are participating in the initiative. The employees were selected based on their petrol use and their kilometric performance per year. Eco driving, is a learning process made up of different stages. It is quite a long process to train people in a proper way and has several steps: Step 1: the installation of the D-loggerThe driving style of the chauffeur was monitored for three weeks via a small device, the D-logger, installed in their car. Different aspects of the driving style could be screened like speed, number of revolutions, the gear switching, break- and acceleration attitude. This way, an objective profile is made up of the different drivers. Step 2: E-learningThe E-learning starts and the participants have to solve a series of exercises through the ‘e-positive’ website. Step 3: PracticeThe teacher takes each driver for a ride of up to one hour. The D-logger results are compared with the actual driving. The teacher gives immediate feedback to improve and optimise the driving style of the chauffeur. Step 4: EvaluationThere is some time between the learning and the actual evaluation. The group is followed again via the D-logger. The final results will be compared to the initial ones. The final results can be expected in the month May and June.
Author: Lies Helsloot
