Instrumented Research Car
The Centre has an instrumented car for conducting research in several areas. This car is a Ford Focus Flexi-fuel which is capable of running on both standard unleaded petrol and bio-ethanol. The ability to run the car on two different fuel types allows research to be conducted on the performance and acceptability of alternatively fuelled cars.
The vehicle is instrumented with several GPS tracking devices to measure both vehicle and driver performance. The main areas of research in which the car is used are as follows:
- Collecting travel time data
- Monitoring driver performance and behaviour
- Measuring vehicle performance
- Testing vehicle performance using different fuel types
- The use of on-board vehicle information systems
