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High-resolution monitoring systems are commonly used to calculate mechanical and energy performance, as well as environmental impact resulting from the operation of a fleet of vehicles in a region. These systems require recording operational or vehicle position data, energy consumption in the case of electric or electric-assisted vehicles, and buttons for specific signals in the operation, such as the start of operation, end of operation, or package delivery. Some vehicle tracking devices available on the market do not allow speed and energy consumption data to be recorded and accessed at the required sampling frequency. This study presents the development and validation of a remote sensing device to record energy consumption and operational variables of a vehicle under real operating conditions with a frequency of 1 Hz. The functioning of the device, the integrated elements in its development, and the data analysis process are detailed. Finally, using the monitoring equipment data, a comparison was made between the operation of electric vehicles and internal combustion vehicles, achieving savings of up to 83% in operating costs and a 79% reduction in CO2 emissions.

Multiple methods have been developed to construct driving cycles. However, a procedure to verify the ability of those methods to construct driving cycles that accurately represent local driving patterns has yet to be established. In this manuscript, we propose a protocol that addresses this need. We first define driving pattern representativeness and then propose a procedure and metrics to evaluate it. We argue that driving cycles should also reproduce vehicles’ energy consumption and tailpipe emissions. i.e., driving cycles should be constructed in the way that fuel consumption and tailpipe emissions of a given vehicle technology following the driving cycle in a chassis dynamometer are similar to the values observed in the regular use of that vehicle technology in the region for which the driving cycle was obtained. Based on this statement, we include a procedure and metrics to evaluate the ability of the method under evaluation to fulfill these requirements.