Influences on Fuel Consumption: The Impact of Driver’s Socio-Demographic Characteristics

A driver’s socio-demographic characteristics can impact her driving behavior, and thereby can affect fuel consumption by her vehicle. Thus, fuel consumption may differ across drivers, and even across different driving environments for the same driver. However, the relationship between drivers’ socio-demographic characteristics and fuel consumption remains unclear. This work explores the correlation between drivers’ demographic attributes and fuel consumption during peak and off-peak hours using naturalistic driving data collected from a busy freeway segment in Austin, Texas. FASTSim was adopted to calculate the fuel consumption level of the travel segment. The results show that during off-peak periods, commuting frequency is the most positively correlated factor with fuel consumption. Further, fuel consumption is also correlated with commuting purpose, age, and gender. During peak traffic time, non-frequent commuters’ fuel consumption is higher and the correlation between fuel consumption and driver’s social attributes is weakened. The findings can shed light on the promotion of eco-friendly driving education.