GreenGPS: A participatory sensing fuel-efficient maps application

This paper develops a navigation service, called GreenGPS, that uses participatory sensing data to map fuel consumption on city streets, allowing drivers to find the most fuel-efficient routes for their vehicles between arbitrary end-points. The service exploits measurements of vehicular fuel consumption sensors, available via the OBD-II interface standardized in all vehicles sold in the US since 1996. The interface gives access to most gauges and engine instrumentation. The most fuel-efficient route does not always coincide with the shortest or fastest routes, and may be a function of vehicle type. Our experimental study shows that a participatory sensing system can influence routing decisions of individual users and also answers two questions related to the viability of the new service. First, can it survive conditions of sparse deployment? Second, how much fuel can it save? A challenge in participatory sensing is to generalize from sparse sampling of high-dimensional spaces to produce compact descriptions of complex phenomena. We illustrate this by developing models that can predict fuel consumption of a set of sixteen different cars on the streets of the city of Urbana-Champaign. We provide experimental results from data collection suggesting that a 1% average prediction error is attainable and that an average 10% savings in fuel can be achieved by choosing the right route.