Route profile analysis system. Final report

The objective of the route profile analysis (RPA) is to determine which of the 160,000 routes of the US Postal Service are suitable for electric vehicle delivery. Data were gathered by an instrumentation system during normal mail delivery with gasoline-powered vehicles. On completion of the route, the information was sent to a central computer, where it was read in as input to the electric vehicle simulation program CARA. A description of the Data Acquisition (DA) System, its operation and calibration, and its installation and removal in the standard 1/4-ton USPS delivery vehicle is provided in Section 1, 2, and 3 respectively. Section 4 provides information on maintenance of the DA System. Section 5 describes the cassette tape reader software and hardware. Section 6 discusses the data reduction procedure for obtaining grade information. Section 7 discusses the verification of the CARA simulation program and the sensitivity of CARA predictions to variation in critical parameters. Sections 8 and 9 review the acceptance test procedures and Sections 10 and 11 discuss their success criteria and the results obtained. Conclusions are given in Section 12. Additional detailed information is provided in the appendices.