Although driving patterns strongly influence greenhouse gas and air pollutant emission rate from light duty vehicles, emission measurements have been mainly based on chassis dynamometer testing with one standard driving pattern. And there has been limited work on quantifying the independent effect of driving parameters on emission rate because of multidimensional nature of real-world driving pattern. The objective of this study is to obtain the quantitative effect of relative positive acceleration (RPA) on vehicle emission rate. RPA has been used to define the occurrence of acceleration demanding large amounts of power in certain driving distance and shown to be a significant affecting parameter for real-world emission rate. 40 driving patterns have been developed with fixed driving parameters to investigate independent effect of RPA. For the same values of average vehicle speed and power, the trend in carbon dioxide emission rate and fuel consumption with respect to RPA is very clear. Emission rate of nitrogen oxide and particulate matter also increase with respect to RPA, but the trend is less clear. Carbon dioxide emission from diesel vehicle appear to be more affected by high accelerations compared to that from gasoline vehicle because of high intake air restriction during acceleration caused by turbocharger and intercooler. The results have implications for the possible reduction of environmental effects through better traffic planning and management, driver education and car design.