Article - Stiffer roadways could improve truck fuel efficiency

[GreenTDI]

Originally Posted by Ecky

You must have really good roads in Belgium!

Last time I was in Michigan, your "Highway to hell" would have been one of the better maintained roadways in that state.

Sooo that's why most Americans drive those big heavy duty trucks.
The shock absorbers would fly out from underneath my car after a day on that 'highway to hell' ...

[Ecky]

Originally Posted by GreenTDI

Sooo that's why most Americans drive those big heavy duty trucks.
The shock absorbers would fly out from underneath my car after a day on that 'highway to hell' ...

Google "Michigan roads" if you'd like some entertainment.

https://www.google.com/search?q=Mich...iw=393&bih=658

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Either asphalt or concrete, poorly-mantained roads are a PITA. Most of Brazilian paved roads resort to asphalt, but it often sinks at different rates even though it would be supposed to remain more levelled than concrete. On a sidenote, now I became curious about the mileage effect of the metallic railing used as some sort of lightweight pavement for older bridges.

[2016 Versa]

Back when I lived in NC and drove I-40 from Statesville, NC to Nashville, TN when coming to KY to visit my parents there was a stretch of concrete roadway that as best as I can remember was somewhere between Hickory, NC and Asheville, NC. As soon as I'd hit that section I could watch the Scan Gauge and it was very obvious on the instant MPG reading the concrete increase mileage by several MPG. That was a very old section of concrete and the roughest riding area of the whole trip. They were always doing some type road construction on I-40 in that approximately 375-400 mile stretch and it was also obvious that newer asphalt didn't deliver as good of MPG as the older asphalt, I always just assumed it was stickier from all the tar in the asphalt and it increased rolling resistance. A freshly paved section right around the NC-TN state line where the steepest of the Smokey Mountains were would play hell with your gas mileage. The new pavement would be so sticky that even on downhill stretches I'd have to stay on the gas just to maintain the 55 MPH speed limit in that section. I couldn't even shift to neutral and maintain the speed limit. Newly paved asphalt in the mountainous areas also didn't appear to be as smooth on top. Maybe it was just me thinking that but, I wonder if maybe I was right and it was to give better traction through the mountains during winter weather and decrease gas mileage the rest of the time. These things were noticed in my 1997 Ford Escort station wagon with a 2.0L/manual 5 speed.

[GreenTDI]

[QUOTE=Ecky;626490]Google "Michigan roads" if you'd like some entertainment.


OK, that gives me a different perspective The result of salt and snow stud/chains?

[Ecky]

I'm certain that's part of it, but another factor is general lack of funding and neglect.

Property taxes are largely what pay for road maintenance. Parts of Michigan are populous but have among the lowest home values in the nation, and patches of home vacancy. It's an area with low stability, as there are frequent mass layoffs when the US auto industry teeters on collapse from years of bad decision-making. Everyone loses their jobs at once and we have few social safety nets. The instability is reflected in property values.

There are blighted regions where one can find entire neighborhoods of homes that were just abandoned, with individual homes that could be purchased for as little as $1,000 - but nobody wants them. So there's a lot of infrastructure to maintain and no tax money coming in. The city of Detroit has even toyed with the idea of letting other infrastructure crumble in these areas - things like shutting off street lights. The remaining residents (who often can't escape) have pushed back pretty hard, as it's often a matter of life safety. Large numbers of people are just trying to survive (literally). The metro Detroit area had around 17,000 reported violent crimes last year, and who knows how many unreported.

Nearby Flint Michigan (home of some General Motors factories) was discovered to have highly toxic levels of heavy metals in the drinking water around 6 years ago. It made national news for months, but to my knowledge very little has been done to fix it. Residents simply don't drink the water.

[jcp123]

Not saying this shouldn’t be looked into, but in trucking there are so many other variables that this would be a drop in the bucket. Wind and load weights are a big deal, and traffic as well. Just the clearing of traffic from the lockdown boosted me from around 8mpg avg to around 8.5mpg. From the standpoint of truck efficiency, the money would be better spent on mitigating traffic.

Selfishly, though, better roads would be nice. Louisiana, Indiana, Oklahoma, I’m calling you out! US-69 is an extremely common truck route through Oklahoma and is in awful shape. I rarely finish a day on that stretch without being grumpy. The truck itself rides more firmly than a 1-ton pickup, and even with the air cushion seat, it’s bad...you’re bouncing around all day, stuff flies around, occasionally a cabinet will open, and of course the worst is when I bottom out.

[GreenTDI]

@ Ecky:
Well-defined analysis of a difficult economic situation.