https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_efficiency_in_transport
that table is thoroughly fascinating. i mean all of them, there’s more than one table on that article
apparently walking is the most energy-efficient transport mode of all?!?!? apart from bicycles
what i find mind-blowing is that airplanes consume approximately the same amount of energy as cars and trains. I mean i can easily see cars and trains being on the same level, but i always thought that airplanes consumed like an order of magnitude more fuel than cars. considering how everybody keeps saying that “airplanes consume so much fuel” and such. crazy.
and also boats are less efficient than i thought? boats consume 16 L/100 km while cars, trains and airplanes consume 6 L/100 km?
For modes using electricity, losses during generation and distribution are included.
They should do this for the fossil fuel modes as well and see what that does to the numbers!
Yeah for the diesel/petrol/gasoline ones they’ve excluded energy wastage at the extraction point (eg if they have a flare), moving the oil to the oil refinery (from wherever in the world it came from), during the refining process (definitely a lot of energy used there), transporting the end product to wherever the filling station is, and finally pumping it into the vehicle.
But they included all the comparable costs for electricity. They wanted fossil fuels to look as good as possible. I’m extremely skeptical about data that suggests air travel is efficient when people have been talking for years about how wasteful and environmentally damaging it is.
Is that generation and distribution within the vehicle or in the grid?
Buses seem to be shafted in that comparison by the fact that no one uses them in the US. Where I am, a bus gets just seven passengers only in the middle of the night. At other times, buses would be easily at the top of the table if not for the fact that our trains also move more than twenty people per car.
That’s because mass transit is, with very few exceptions, absolutely ass in the USA. People only use it as the absolute last resort. That skews the table a lot against any public transit.
That always sounded to me like a chicken-egg problem. People don’t use buses and subways, because buses and subways are populated by weird dirty hobos. Well guess what…
That’s wrong on so many levels I can’t even begin to unpack it.
Oh suuuure. Except maybe you haven’t noticed, but I can read English, and peruse US-dominated social media. In the threads on mass transit it’s always “truly these are complex and multifaceted problems”, and then outside that thread it’s “I had to use subway today with all the masturbating weirdos like a peasant”.
They are just not related. The crazies on the street are not disappearing if people all decide to use transit. How is that a chicken and egg problem?
Explain then how it is that there are no dirty smelly masturbating crazies on buses and subways in my country.
Crazies hang out doing crazy stuff in spaces that are conducive to such behavior. If normal people ride public transport because it’s expected that public transport accommodates normal people, then crazy behavior isn’t tolerated on public transport.
Maybe it’s the same for commuter rail. It’s weird seeing average 33 passengers, when they were always standing room only while I was riding
Yeah, I’ve lumped them together in my mind, because subway is typically not called ‘train’ in my language. But the situation is about the same. Just looked it up: a subway car here has the ‘full capacity’ of over 300 people, commuter cars around the same, but probably less in practice. And the numbers sure push toward that during rush hour.
Urban sprawl, zoning laws, lack of dedicated bus lanes with safe and walkable stops, low frequency, comfort (seat, space, aircon/heat, chargers), and prices.
Comfort and frequency are the easiest to solve, prices, urban sprawl, zoning laws, and the like less so. Not to mention that labour rights must be improved for bus drivers.
What’s demand response?
My guess is taxis and things like Uber.
Something you have to call up/book to get anywhere
Speed is the problem for boats
ooh interesting! Today I Learned
I’ve always thought that a 60 passenger bus with 2 people on it is never going to be as efficient as a car with 2 people. Probably closer to 2 cars with 1 each. And that’s a strikingly common situation in North America because they won’t buy a smaller bus and electric busses are still a dangerous concept for so many transit managers.
boats consume 16 L/100 km
see also sailboats and economies of scale.
Why are those passenger numbers for the train so low? Here at least the railway moves something like 2000 passengers per vehicle on average. Over 3000 at peak times.
The bicycle vs velomobile (latter is more energy efficient in chart) is based on high speed. velomobile is heavier, and uses more energy at low speed and stop and go traffic. Parking the dam thing onto a sidewalk is an ordeal that takes energy.
It’s unclear that food energy used for exercise should count the same as fuel. Implies Wally lifestyle is bestest.
“On demand” is taxi-equivalents? Transit scores low with low occupancy busses. Air is optimized for most perfect economy, and chart likely created by that industry.
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