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Policy-makers are investigating ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions of the transportation sector. Many government agencies have studied the effects of pavement type and characteristics on fuel consumption. Such models, valid for a particular set of simulation conditions, suggest that rigid pavements perform better than flexible pavements. However, it is unclear how this type of model can be applied at the scale of a realistic road network. This paper proposes a statistical approach to assess the relative importance of pavement type and characteristics on fuel consumption of heavy vehicle traffic by considering the specificities of meteorological conditions, heavy vehicles, and driver behaviours. A case study in Canada showed that the potential advantage of using rigid pavements was offset by cold climate effects and the consideration of a realistic statistical payload distribution. Road roughness accounted on average for 1.1% of total fuel consumption, with an increased value of 1.9% in January. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the fuel efficiency of commercial hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) and compares their performance with respect to standard gasoline vehicles in the context of cold Canadian urban environments. The effect of different factors on fuel efficiency is studied including road driving conditions (link type, city size), temperature, speed, cold-starts and eco-driving training. For this study, fuel consumption data at the link level in real-world conditions was used from a sample of 74 instrumented vehicles. From the study fleet, 21 vehicles were HEVs. Among other results, the beneficial fuel efficiency merits of hybrid vehicles were demonstrated with respect to gasoline cars, in particular at low speeds and in urban (city) environments. After controlling for other factors, sedan HEVs were 28% more efficient than sedan gasoline vehicles. However, the low temperatures (below 0 °C) observed regularly during winter season in the study cities were identified as a detrimental factor to fuel economy. In winter, the fuel efficiency of HEVs decrease about 20% with respect to summer. Other factors such as eco-driving training, city size, cold start and vehicle type were also found to be statistically significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]