Vehicle Response and Real World Driving Pattern for Indian Scenario for Vehicle Development and Optimization Program 2013-26-0152

The Indian automotive industry today stands as the most vibrant, modern and upbeat automobile market in the world and is the current focus of venture for almost every leading vehicle manufacturer in the world. New variants launched in Indian market are tested by instrumenting it with different sensors and running it on proving ground and public roads and further validated in the laboratory. These testing practices may be derived from the market needs and driving pattern of that region and trying to adopt for Indian condition. The driving characteristics obtained from other markets may not represent Indian driving patterns. Similarly Indian vehicle manufacturer also need to know updated driving characteristics, which is very much dynamic and changing with new type of roads/driving habit etc.

There is a need to tune the vehicle for realistic Indian conditions and driving pattern. Extensive database on actual Indian driving behavior and its effect on vehicle response is necessary input for development of vehicles.

This paper talks about the response of vehicle system and sub-systems to the Indian driving pattern. It explores an extensive measurement and analysis of key parameters of different vehicle and sub-system which could be used for arriving at guidelines required for vehicle development for target market. To address this need of auto industry, extensive data collection and analysis on vehicles around India, which represent Indian conditions, is carried out. The guidelines thus derived from real-world data will be useful for developing, evaluating and optimizing the vehicle system/sub-system for Indian road conditions.

Automotive engineering world is continuously moving towards the globalization. Vehicle manufacturer is striving to develop a vehicle which surpasses the usual bars of demography, driving behavior, and transportation infrastructure variations. Capturing various dynamic variations as driving behavior, vehicle usage pattern, road network infrastructure and its usage and operational pattern for different category of vehicles will help in understanding an actual driving pattern for Indian roads. This study also gives insight about weightage that may be given to a set of vehicle key parameters while design and development. To determine weightage for different types of vehicle, region etc., ARAI has conducted an exercise of “Survey India” to determine actual driving habit/operational pattern of 4/6 wheel vehicle as seen by vehicles during its service life. This statistical database thus developed would give a complete picture of driving habit and operational pattern across the country and also would be a key input to arrive at component/system specific duty cycle once combined with specific data/requirements and inputs from OEM's/sub-system developed.

Study of vehicle/sub-system performance based on actual data acquired under Indian road condition in line with the “Survey India” results will prove as assistance in vehicle optimization influenced by real world of Indian road conditions. The paper also talks about a complete methodology for assessment of target for vehicle market.