Affect the emissions with your music
Many aspects of traffic make our heart rate increase: traffic jams, route changes, road construction and repair. This leads to a more aggressive driving style, reduced safety and increased emissions.
What if we could reduce emissions by affecting drivers’ heart rates?
Neste studied Finns’ musical tastes and designed playlists for keeping your driving style more climate-friendly, which reduces both emissions and costs.
This is how music affects driving
The tempo of the music has a significant impact on the heart rate*, which affects the driving speed and driving style and, consequently, emissions and costs. High-tempo music easily leads to increasing driving speeds, while music with a calmer tempo slows down the heart rate. According to studies, the optimal number of beats per minute for concentration and road safety when driving is below 90 bpm**. When listening to music above 120 bpm, the risk of a faster driving speed and traffic violations increases***. Those listening to high-tempo music drove an average of 10 mph (16 km/h) faster****.
According to studies, our body calms down when we listen to lower-tempo music. A lower tempo reduces the speed, improves the driver’s perception and increases road safety.
Sources: *International Journal of Research in Medical Sciences. **The Sunday Times, Driving. ***RAC. ****The Sunday Times, Driving
Finnish drivers and music
In the spring of 2023, Neste studied what kind of music is likely to increase Finns’ heart rate and what they think is the best music for driving. We played a diverse range of music to Finns through earphones to find out what kind of songs increase the heart rate the most.
Based on this, we created a set of playlists that support climate-friendly driving. Each playlist contains music from different genres, but no song exceeds 90 bpm. Playlists created for the most congested stretches of highways are publicly available on Neste Bensis´ Spotify account.
