Abstract
For the domestic food transport the choice of the most fuel-saving route was treated as a problem of the choice of the minimum distance route between destinations. However, in a country like Japan where its territory is occupied by steep landscape, road inclination has significant influence on fuel consumption of vehicles. Therefore we firstly quantified the relation between road inclination and fuel consumption of a car. Then using this relation, we developed an algorithm that can extract most suitable route under conditions of minimum distance, minimum fuel consumption and minimum travel time. Then by comparing nature of extracted routes in six prefectures in Kinki Region, we examined the effect of road inclination on the choice of the most fuel-saving route. Analysis showed that “minimum distance” is not a consistent indicator of fuel consumption when applied to regions of different relief. Minimum distance did not always result in minimum fuel consumption. Local relief and degree of road improvement in the region (national routes and highways) had significant influence on fuel consumption of the vehicle.
