Chart Of The Day: Cars Do Better Than Buses For Fuel Economy?

by Derek Kreindler

Published: February 20th, 2015

chart of the day cars do better than buses for fuel economy

A new chart from the Department of Transportation claims that taking the bus is actually less fuel efficient than driving a car or light truck. I’ll grab the popcorn while you read this and mull over Ronnie’s piece on EVs.

Hat tip: Glenn Mercer

#ChartOfTheDay #PublicTransit

Derek Kreindler

More by Derek Kreindler

Comments

Join the conversation

8 of 83 comments

Toomanycrayons on Feb 22, 2015

50 mpg/pm on a motorcycle? I must be having too much fun.

Like Reply
David C. Holzman on Feb 22, 2015

When I wrote an article a few years ago looking at different policies for mitigating global warming, two transportation experts in the US and one in Europe told me that installing public transportation was an extremely expensive way to mitigate global warming, and not worth it for that goal. (They did say there were other reasons to do it.) http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/117-a296/

Like Reply
- Dtremit on Feb 22, 2015
  
  "installing public transportation was an extremely expensive way to mitigate global warming" I think that if the goal is to reduce global warming by building transit to replace people's existing car commutes, that's probably very true. We have, in many places, an entire built environment centered around the car -- and simply plunking down a train line between suburbia and the office doesn't fix any of the other ways in which that environment is inefficient. What really drives energy efficiency is *density* -- people living in smaller homes, closer to their workplaces. The average NYC resident consumes a quarter of the gasoline, and about half the electricity, of an average American. The catch is, you can't achieve that kind of density without building transit -- and frankly, buses aren't good enough. To encourage people to pay a premium for city housing, you have to have a transit infrastructure they know is still going to be there when their mortgage is paid off. And that means rail, by and large.
  
  Like
Mr. K on Feb 22, 2015

Ohhh a chart from "The Department of Transportation" Impressive! What Department of Transportation would that be from? The US DOT? The North Dakota DOT? The Canadian DOT? What is the chart measuring? Inner city ridership at 3 AM? 500 mile intercity trips? What are the metrics used to measure ridership and MPG? With no link to the source it's impossible to determine anyting. Clearly since Glenn Mercer, a "freelance automotive industry investment adviser" posted this on Twitter it MUST be true and indicative of...something! With such artful non information surely a position with a p̶r̶o̶p̶a̶g̶a̶n̶d̶a̶ lobbying outfit awaits Mr. Kreindler. FWIW: http://d35brb9zkkbdsd.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/kwan_fig1a-300x257.png No, I know none of the details of the chart I linked to above, but I think it's purty, and it does show transit in a much better light then Mercer's chart, Derek. Here is another link, a 26% delta between the best and worst airlines (and if you read the fine print, upto an 87% delta between airlines serving the same route). http://www.theicct.org/sites/default/files/U.S.%20Airlines%20Ranking%20Fact%20Sheet%20final.pdf Can't wait for your next piece of bait, Derek. Perhaps something on the Kallikak family? Others besides me have made this point Derek: People on on mass transit are people out of cars. If mass transit were absent then more roads would be required, especially in dense urban areas where roads are the most costly to build. Such expense will result in higher road usage fees, and/or less money for rural, exurban, and suburban roads. I did like the Golf R review however!

Like Reply
- See 2 previous
- Landcrusher on Feb 23, 2015
  
  Lol, greyhound isn't public transportation. I don't recall any subsidies for those guys.
  
  Like
- Landcrusher on Feb 23, 2015
  
  Also, biggest fuel waste in airlines is the FAA inability to move to glide slope descents and approaches. SWA tried to get it implemented, but the controllers inevitably couldn't make the switch.
  
  Like
- Glenn Mercer on Feb 23, 2015
  
  Here is the source: "Beyond Traffic 2045: Trends and Choices." US Department of Transportation. All statistics are national-level, for the US. The chart is on page 140. The data notes at the end of the chapter it appears in discuss the calculations in detail (e.g. a key source was NHTS, the National Household Travel Survey), but in short they took the total number of passengers by mode, the total number of miles those passengers traveled, and thus found passenger-miles. The bus number I believe is purely intra-city buses, no inter-city buses like Megabus. Then they used the total fuel each mode consumed. The entire report is some 300+ pages, can be downloaded here: http://www.dot.gov/BeyondTraffic
  
  Like
Sky_Render on Feb 23, 2015

This could be partially fixed by using smaller buses, methinks. In my city, they use these giant, full-size buses that I've never seen more than 3 passengers on. They could use a conversion van, instead!

Like Reply