Google maps to feature eco-friendly routing

Well, I have no idea how this is going to work. I don’t use GM often enough to realize the current options.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56585877

Out here in Massachusetts, they are currently converting the highway signs from numerical order to mile-marker numbers.

Something else that may need to be factored into travel (device) planning.

OM

My 2020 F-350 has "Eco" Routing as an option (along with Fastest and Shortest route options).

My Nuvi-58 offers the following Route Calculation Modes:

• Faster Time
• Off Road
• Shorter Distance
• Less Fuel

The Nav-VI doesn't have that, nor does Garmin's new XT.

The algorithms used for these factor in stoplights, stop signs, speed changes, etc., as well as elevation changes. However, I suspect now that Google owns Waze, their algorithm will also include Waze's user feedback data, as well as the slower "Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks (VANETs)" that Garmin Traffic currently uses.

This user-type data has been in use for some time now and is known as "Feedback-based eco-routing (FB-ECO)". My personal observations are that while there are still issues with Waze, it is far quicker at providing routing data that is "more" up-to-date than the VANETs data that can have such a lag time as to make it useless except for rush hour traffic and incidents that have happened some time ago. Waze tends to be quicker because it is on-the-ground input rather than sensors and monitors.

A University of Michigan study of 2,000 vehicles did the following:

Four different routing strategies including shortest distance, shortest time, eco-routing, and
travel-time-constrained eco-routing are compared. The results show that eco-routing can reduce fuel
consumption, but may increase travel time. A travel-time-constrained eco-routing algorithm is
developed to keep most the fuel saving benefit while incurring very little increase in travel time.

Click to expand...

It concluded that a 25% fuel saving was possible with the pure Eco setting and about 9% with very little time penalty.