Protocol to evaluate methods designed for the construction of representative driving cycles

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.