"Denver Launches Monitoring Program To Cut CO2" Green Car Advisor

Denver Launches Monitoring Program To Cut CO2

Driving Change graphics show CO2 emissions per hour (top) and compared to group, and aggressive driving frequency (bottom) compared to group.

By John O'Dell, Senior Editor
Everybody talks about it, but actually doing something to address climate change can seem a daunting task.

A Southern California company that made its mark monitoring emissions from power plants and oil refineries wants to help change that with a program it calls Driving Change and claims is the world's first "vehicle-based" greenhouse gas reduction initiative aimed at altering individual motorists' driving habits.

"It's no longer hard to figure out your vehicle's greenhouse gas emissions" and devise strategies for lowering them, said Lawrence E. Goldenhersh, president and chief executive of Enviance Inc.

The program, which launches today in Denver, Colorado, uses real-time vehicle diagnostics and telemetrics to compute carbon-dioxide emissions from individual cars and trucks and track motorists' daily driving habits to identify behavior that can significantly decrease fuel economy thus increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

"The theory is that if we put into the hands of everyday citizens the tools that allow them to understand how they contribute to the greenhouse gas problem, and give them the tools to change their behavior, then they will engage in corrective behavior," said Goldenhersh.

Driving Style Matters

Greenhouse gas emissions for a vehicle driven at a "normal" pace would be reported in actual numbers, while data for vehicles driven aggressively, or subject to lengthy period of idling, would be adjusted to account for estimated increases in emissions.

An Edmunds study several years ago found that driving style can have a marked impact on fuel efficiency, with mileage dropping as much as 31 percent during periods of aggressive braking and acceleration. Speeding can cut fuel economy by 14 percent, the study found, and an average car will produce 1.2 pounds of CO₂ every five minutes while idling.

The Driving Change program is a little less stringent, adjusting 20 percent for aggressive driving and 12 percent for speeding, Goldenhersh said.

By changing driving styles to eliminate such penalties, "Our hypothesis is that a driver can save one to two gallons of gas per vehicle for every eight hours of driving time," he told Green Car Advisor in an interview Tuesday.

With just 400 vehicles participating -- half from the city and half from city residents -- that would cut CO₂ emissions by a minimum of 7,840 pounds, almost four tons, every eight hours.

Helping People Help

Carlsbad, California-based Enviance, founded in 1999, provides in real-time, computer-based monitoring of environmental compliance for companies in 45 countries.

But Goldenhersh said he realized some time ago that the same kind of information could be tailored to the individual and could provide impetus for CO₂reduction efforts at the grassroots level.

Enviance has approached a number of municipalities and corporations about the program it has developed, he said.

Denver is the first to sign on.

"The city and the mayor are driving this," said Goldenhersh.

Green City

Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper is one of a chain of city leaders going back to 1993 who have pushed for various green initiatives. Among other things the city now has 144 hybrid vehicles in its fleet and operates more than 800 trucks and cars on a diesel blend that includes 20 percent biodiesel.

In the one-year test program, Enviance will constantly monitor signals from 200 city vehicles -- and the company is hoping to sign up at least 200 individual Denver motorists to participate as well -- and prepare up to-the-minute reports that will track fast starts and stops, speeding and rapid acceleration and even the number of minutes spent idling. All are things that affect mileage and increase a vehicle's carbon-dioxide output, Goldenhersh said.

Individual drivers will be able to sign on to work onhome computers with private passwords and see personalized "dashboard" screens that lay out CO₂ emissions by the hour and rate emissions and driving behavior against each driver's own goals and against the averages for the entire test population.

A general report showing only collective data without identifying individual drivers will be transmitted daily to the city.

Enviance does the data crunching and prepares and posts the reports, said Goldenhersh. Instrumentation to collect and wirelessly transmit the data from each vehicle is provided by a Denver firm, Cartasite Inc.

Safer, Greener, Cheaper

"We presume that, knowing this information, people will drive more safely and greener, and in the long run will save money," Goldenhersh said.

“Autos and vehicle fleets are a major contributor to greenhouse gases and global warming and Driving Change is a results-oriented effort aimed at controlling those emissions,” said William K. Reilly, a former EPA administrator and chairman of the environmental committee for chemical giant DuPont Co.'s board of directors. DuPont is an Enviance client.

While the goal is to have 200 Denver residents participating, Goldenhersh said Enviance's system is robust enough to handle tens of thousands of simultaneous data feeds if more than that want to sign up (e-mail denver@drivingchange.org).

Big Plans

"As we roll this out it can go in a variety of directions," he said. "Other cities can participate, corporate fleets and individuals can use it and it can even go to retail chains."

He envisions the system being used as a marketing tool by some.

"Image driving up to your favorite coffee shop and a little screen by the door tells you how much greenhouse gas the shop is generating versus other shops in the same chain, and even all other coffee shops in the city or the state. Information like that could help people make decisions" about which businesses to patronize, he said.

"We're looking at the use of Web-based information to band together like minds to tackle a problem."