Search Results

In future, there will be increasing demand for mobility and transportation especially in the newly industrialized countries where about half of the world''s population lives. This will enormously increase the number of vehicles in operation. The fact of such development taking place in the economically poorest countries of the world is alarming because these will not be able to apply strict emission and safety legislation as is practiced in the highly industrialized nations. Renewable energy must be developed and used to reduce exhaust emission even though fossil fuels will be available for decades in the future. Besides further reduction of required energy and increase of efficiency, intelligent traffic management systems will play a major role in tackling the challenges put by our demands for individual mobility.

In comparison to other vehicles motorcycles have very special driving characteristics, so the typical use of motorcycles is clearly distinct from the use of passenger cars. At Darmstadt University the riding behavior of motorcyclists has been experimentally investigated [2, 3, 4, 5], especially in order to determine their exhaust and noise emissions in real traffic. The results and the essential differences between motorcycles and cars should be considered in the discussion of testing methods and limiting values, e.g., for exhaust and noise emissions of two-wheelers. This paper presents a comparison between the typical driving performance of motorcycles and passenger cars and contains results of motorcycle exhaust and noise emission measurements in real traffic and in statutory tests. The current legal measuring standards are found not to represent the reality of motorcycle traffic in a sufficient manner.