Measuring emissions and driver behaviour to design better roads and reduce CO2 emissions in the UAE

Photo by Ajit Sandhu on Unsplash

Policy approach(es) used to catalyse investment: Development of a national, regional, or sectoral InfraTech strategy 

Technology approach(es) used to catalyse investment: Implementation of a data platform or digital twin for greater transparency over performance  

Finance approach(es) used to catalyse investment:   Public investment

The aim of this project is to increase road safety by considering driver behaviour through the development of a new mobile application that collects the necessary data to analyse a driver’s reaction against the road safety guidelines.

The project is measuring the actual scale of CO2 emission for roads based on driver behaviour at main accelerating points such as intersections, after speed bumps, etc. The findings will allow planners to design suitable road infrastructure with proper safety guidelines, including signboards, signals, intersections, and road exit depending on driver behaviour.

The challenges that have been addressed in this project are:

• The high number of driver accidents, which can be reduced by identifying the crucial factors and check the effectiveness of the road infrastructure safety guidelines.  
• Measuring the focal points of high CO2 emission due to vehicle acceleration. High acceleration is considered one of the main factors in increasing the CO2 emission, which is difficult to measure without analysing the drivers' driving behaviour.   

Internal researchers from the Department of Studies, Research and Development at the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure (MOEI), United Arab Emirates are developing the InfraTech solution.  

The data collection streamed from a developed mobile application to the central server for analysis. The novel method is designed to identify the actual effectiveness of road guidelines and measure vehicle CO2 emissions based on acceleration level. Investigating current driver behaviour in the country would help in future planning and design for roads infrastructure and policies, as it varies from country to country. 

The project is currently in the research and development phase. It will be released in August 2022, with data collected during September and analysed in February 2023. The project is expected to be completed in May 2023. 

The key performance indicators for the project are to: 

• Measure the accelerating/ decelerating rate during driving at specific locations 
• Measure the wheel steering angle during driving at specific locations
• Collect the latitude and longitude based on a time interval (for example, two seconds)
• Measure the approximate CO2 emission related to driving behaviour.

Note: This case study and all information within was submitted by the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure (MOEI), United Arab Emirates in response to our global call for InfraTech case studies.