RouteE: Route Energy Prediction Modeling Tools

NREL's Route Energy Prediction (RouteE) modeling tools enable vehicle energy estimation and energy-aware route planning.

The open-source RouteE suite consists of two key tools—RouteE Powertrain and RouteE Compass—along with the simplified RouteE API.

RouteE Powertrain for Vehicle Energy Consumption Analysis

Built as a modular Python package, RouteE Powertrain predicts the energy consumption of a given vehicle over a proposed route. It accounts for various driving conditions such as anticipated traffic congestion, traffic speed, road type, number of lanes, road grade, and turns. It enables users to obtain energy estimates for the full range of vehicle sizes—from light-duty vehicles to heavy-duty trucks and transit buses—for trips or routes where detailed drive cycle data may be unavailable.

Data-Informed Analysis

RouteE Powertrain features a library of "pretrained" models informed by a million miles of real-world drive cycle data from NREL's Transportation Secure Data Center and hundreds of powertrain models from the Future Automotive Systems Technology Simulator (FASTSim). The pretrained models for various vehicle types—ranging from conventional gasoline and diesel vehicles to hybrid electric vehicles, battery electric vehicles, and fuel cell electric vehicles—provide energy consumption behavior estimates over a representative sample of driving conditions in the United States.

Users can also employ the tool to generate their own trained, validated models based on custom driving and energy consumption data.

Capabilities

• Bus selection for transit fleet electrification
• Vehicle energy consumption analysis
• Fuel economy impact analysis
• Vehicle range estimation
• Energy accounting and optimization in transportation simulations
• Travel corridor energy analysis
• Trip planning energy estimates
• Vehicle replacement analysis.

Partnership with Google Maps

Among the many examples of how the RouteE Powertrain/FASTSim tool chain is making a difference in the real world is NREL's partnership with Google Maps to inform the navigation app's fuel-efficient routing capability. Between its launch in late 2021 to the end of 2023, this feature is estimated to have enabled roughly 3 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions reductions—the equivalent of taking about 650,000 gasoline vehicles off the road for a year. The fuel-efficient routing feature is now rolling out globally and is expected to reach one billion users.

RouteE Compass for Energy-Aware Routing

RouteE Compass is an energy-aware routing tool that incorporates energy consumption predictions from RouteE Powertrain into network routing algorithms. It can accommodate any vehicle size or powertrain technology. RouteE Compass is built as a high-performance Rust application with easy-to-use Python bindings.

Capabilities

• Transit resilience planning
• Vehicle route optimization and selection
• Potential energy savings quantification from alternative routes
• National-scale routing analysis
• Time and energy trade-offs evaluation
• Potential energy and time savings calculations related to specific fuel-efficient routing options.

Partnership With Fleet Operators

NREL is using RouteE Compass to help fleet operators across the country optimize their fleets of transit buses and commercial vehicles to save money while reducing fuel use and emissions.

RouteE API for Simplified Access to Tools

For users who prefer not to run the source code directly, RouteE offers a simplified REST API that provides access to both RouteE Powertrain and RouteE Compass functionalities.

Publications

The following publications provide technical information about RouteE. For NREL's full collection of documents, visit the Publications Database.

RouteE-Powertrain Validation Report, NREL Technical Report (2024)

RouteE: A Vehicle Energy Consumption Prediction Engine, SAE International Journal of Advances and Current Practices in Mobility (2020)

Trip Energy Estimation Methodology and Model Based on Real-World Driving Data for Green-Routing Applications, Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board (2018)

Development of a Trip Energy Estimation Model using Real-World Global Positioning System Driving Data, Intelligent Transport Systems World Congress (2017)

How To Cite RouteE

If you use RouteE for work described in a publication, please include a citation in your publication consistent with the following format:

"RouteE: Route Energy Prediction Model." ([YEAR]). National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Accessed [DATE]: www.nrel.gov/transportation/route-energy-prediction-model.html.

News

Read the following news stories to learn how NREL is using RouteE and other tools in real-world applications.

NREL's Open-Source Vehicle and Mobility Tools Offer Routes To Reduce Transportation Energy Use, Emissions

Google Taps NREL Expertise To Incorporate Energy Optimization Into Google Maps Route Guidance

Charging Infrastructure Analysis Aims To Help California Meet Zero-Emission Vehicle Goals: Analysis Leverages NREL Data Science Expertise and State-of-the-Art Modeling Tools

Contact

To learn more about RouteE or explore related partnership opportunities, contact us at RouteE@nrel.gov.