Smart mobility has ushered in advanced sensing technologies. These, together with high‑level data analytics, are revolutionizing how we analyze driving behavior. Excellent performance in dealing with real-world, high-technology complexities for machine learning has made wide enthusiasm to utilize them to study driver behavior. This article gives a thorough overview of the important machine learning methods—especially clustering and classification techniques—that help analyze complex driving behaviors, predict fuel and energy use, and improve vehicle safety systems. The review specifically explains unsupervised methods like fuzzy c-means, k-means, and density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise, as well as supervised techniques such as artificial neural networks, k-nearest neighbors, and support vector machines. Also, this review discusses the integration of clustering and classification techniques with hybrid deep learning models, and examines their applications in eco-driving, energy forecasting, and intelligent transport systems while offering novel findings that contribute to more sustainable mobility. Emphasis is placed on how these methods transform vast, heterogeneous driving data into actionable insights that support real-time monitoring and personalized feedback for eco-driving and smart transportation applications. Finally, current benefits and barriers, and future research opportunities and challenges in integrating machine learning into intelligent transportation systems are reviewed. The potential to advance to safer, better, and more sustainable forms of mobility is emphasized.

Predicting drill penetration rate (PR) in rock environments remains a significant challenge due to the complex interplay between rock texture, drilling fluid properties, and operational parameters. Traditional empirical models often lack generalizability and are based on inconsistent datasets, limiting their reliability. To address these limitations, this study develops a comprehensive experimental dataset using rock samples collected from various mines in Iran, tested under controlled laboratory conditions with different drilling fluids, bit loads, and rotational speeds. Texture coefficient (TC), electrical conductivity (EC), load on bit (LOB), and bit rotational velocity (BRV) were selected as input features. Four machine learning models—support vector regression (SVR), stochastic gradient descent (SGD), K-nearest neighbors (KNN), and decision tree (DT)—were trained to predict PR. A biogeography-based optimization (BBO) algorithm was employed to fine-tune hyperparameters and enhance model accuracy. Additionally, a novel hybrid error index (HEI) was introduced to comprehensively evaluate model performance. Among all models, the DT achieved the best accuracy with an HEI of 0.3753, followed by KNN, SVR, and SGD. These findings demonstrate the potential of the DT model, combined with optimized learning and a robust dataset, to reliably predict penetration rate in rock-based engineering projects.