SAE International Development of Representative Regional Delivery Drive Cycles for Heavy-Duty Truck Tractors 2014-01-9024

Several drive cycles have been developed to describe heavy-duty class 8 truck tractor operations. However, regional delivery operations, consisting of a mix of urban and over-the-road driving using highways to access several delivery/pick-up sites in dense urban areas, have not been well described. With funding from the U.S. Army National Automotive Center, the High-efficiency Truck Users Forum (HTUF) developed two drive cycles in an effort to better describe the full range of Class 8 truck tractor operations, which in total consumed about 30 billion gallons of diesel in the United States in 2010. This paper describes the rational for and the process to develop two regional delivery drive cycles: HTUF Regional Delivery #1 and HTUF Regional Delivery #2. These cycles were developed from more than eight months of cumulative data collected on six diesel Class 8 truck tractors operating across North America and representing several types of truck vocations. The HTUF Regional Delivery drive cycles fill an important gap in understanding and describing the full range of Class 8 truck tractor operations. They characterize regional delivery operations, which are not well described in previous drive cycle development efforts but which represents a meaningful segment of Class 8 truck tractor use. These two drive cycles allow for more effective evaluation of the fuel efficiency and emissions benefits of high-efficiency truck technologies and fuels in this growing segment, such as hybrid electric, plug-in hybrid electric and compressed or liquefied natural gas.