Role of IoT Solutions in Reducing CO2 Emission and Road Safety in Car Rental and Car Sharing Market

Abstract

AbstractIt is required by increased traffic on European roads to undertake actions not only to reduce CO2 emission but also to enhance traffic safety. A driver’s driving style is an important aspect that influences CO2 emission and driving safety. Considerable challenges are to train drivers on a massive scale and convince them to change their driving style. Nevertheless, the authors notice two favourable circumstances that are a popularity increase in a short-term car sharing and the Internet of Things technology development. It would be possible to educate drivers on a massive scale with no additional costs included due to systems that analyse the drivers’ driving style in the short-term car rental service performance. This analysis would be based on telematics data and its processing and transfer to the drivers as hints oriented to eco driving and safe driving. The authors suggest that such solutions would significantly influence the driver’s driving style improvement. In the authors’ view, cars use more fuel (and thereby, emit more CO2) than declared by their producers in the short-term car rental service performance. At the same time, the drivers cause more damage than the mean of the entire Polish market. The chapter aims at verifying 3 research hypotheses. One of them regards fuel consumption (and CO2 emission) and two of them regard drivers’ safety in the short-term car rental service performance. The research was conducted in July 2018 based on a sample of 699 cars that were part of the fleet of an international car rental company operates on Polish market and specialises in short-term car rental services. The conducted research results made it possible to state that car consume much more fuel (and thereby emit more CO2 to the atmosphere) than declared by their producers. This is referred to the short-term car rental service performance. The drivers, who use this service, cause traffic damage more frequently than the average for all cars in Poland and the damage results are larger than the mean (measured by the average damage value).KeywordsCO2 emissionEco drivingSafe drivingCar rentalCar sharing