Various transportation methods, how many gallons to go 350 miles
 

I found this over lunch today. Its pretty interesting. The chart shows how many gallons of gas it takes per person to go 350 miles.

GOOD.is Transparency - Getting Around

http://awesome.goodmagazine.com/tran...garoundrev.jpg

Great graphic. Surprised that the motor coach beats Amtrak by that much.

Reminds me of an article from back in the day by Peter Egan which compares the fuel mileage of a Honda Cub to that of an athlete riding a bicycle. The Honda won.

Great, thanks. I saw (cheeseburger) x 16 and now I'm hungry. :-)

At 15 miles per hour on a bicycle to travel 350 miles it would take you about 24 hours. Is it even possible to consume 16 cheeseburgers in 24 hours? I'd like to take a crack at that one! Great info. Daox!

If you're in shape for riding a bike for 24 hours in a row, you can probably eat 16 cheeseburgers in 24 hours. Just ask Michael Phelps!

-soD

I have to wonder about some of their numbers. I can't for instance see motorcycles getting better mpg than a typical hybrid. I've owned a good many motorcycles over my life, and the only one that'd get close to 50 mpg was my first 305 CC Honda, back in the '70s.

Then there's the cruise ship, which if you think about it gets 0 mpg. You get on it, stay a while, it burns a bunch of fuel - and when you get off, you're right back where you started :-)

My Helix would get 55 mpg at 65 mph. At 60 mph, I imagine most lower-displacement motorcycles would average 50 mpg.

I'm surprised at how bad cruise ships are since cargo ships are so efficient. I'm also surprised amtrack loses that badly to buses. Is there a specific reason? Like outdated train systems? Again, rail is MUCH more efficient at cargo for numbers I saw.

The numbers are probably just a best guess. I certainly would not say the average SUV gets 21 mpg, especially when driven by the average driver. I don't know of any that get over 20.

And isn't a hybrid about the same efficiency as a typical sedan when driven nonstop on a long trip (like the straight 350 miles from the chart)? The big gains come in the city when you aren't just sitting in traffic and burning gas.

But still, it is a good chart.

I've never had a motorcycle, but I would have thought you could get 100 mpg on one. I wonder why so low, maybe they're just geared for performance rather than economy? Might as well just drive a Metro if you're in it for fuel savings.

Seems like typical U.S. motorcycles are pretty much in the 50 mpg range; little stuff like Honda 50s get 100+. Of course they aren't going 55 mph either.

As a matter of fact, no, at least not if you take the Honda Insight to be a typical hybrid. It gets its biggest efficiency gain from having a smaller engine, which runs closer to BSFC optimum in highway cruising. Highway cruising is where it does best*: given a fairly flat road & no headwinds (both rare in these parts) I can often cruise at 80+ mpg. In urban driving, I often drop below 50.

*OK, what it would really do best would be level 2-lane country roads with no stops, where I could stay at 50-60 mph, but there's only one stretch of that around here, about 5 miles long. I can do close to 100 mpg on that bit, if the phase of the moon is right :-)

Cool chart. So, I guess I should ride a bus when I am too lazy to ride a bike.

Here's a link I've had bookmarked for about a year now
Wikipedia: Fuel efficiency in transportation

motorcycles do seem to average 50-60mpg, not sure? there is already a thread about motorcycle mpg started, my Honda cb125 gets 62mpg or so and my Tomos scooter gets over 100mpg
I'm surprised at the gym on the elliptical walking machine how many watts it says I put out just walking, over 200 watts at about a 2mph pace, that mount of power going in to my electric bike should be able to make it cruse at 8-12mph (400 watts going 25mph on flat), even if there is some variation in the numbers they do seem pretty close for each category of course the last time I road in an SUV there were 7 of us in there and otherwise we would have had to take two vehicles at 18mpg we got around 126mpg per person.

The problem is deciding where to draw the line between motorcycle, scooter, and moped. While a 125 cc motorcycle may get 50-60 mpg, most motorcycles have engines 500 cc and up.

You guys are right. These numbers are actually very conservative. It assumes each form of transportation is at full capacity. When is the last time you saw 5 occupants in an SUV (and on that gets 21 mpg lol), or even a sedan for that matter? I think 56 mpg is high for the majority of the bikes out there too.

My guess is that they are assuming a "typical number of passengers" in each case. And since each passenger (particularly on a cruise ship!) needs a lot of "extra" room--the cabins, the entertainment facilities, the extra staff required to deal with them, etc.--you wind up with lots of "wasted" space compared to cargo ships.

I assume something similar is going on with the passenger versus cargo trains.

-soD

And most of them can carry 2 people. If you max out the passenger count for the other forms of transport then motorcycles should also be maxed.

My brothers Suzuki Katana 600 would get mid 50's for mileage in stock form, a friend of mine gets mid 50's to low 60's for mileage with a Ninja 250 ridden hard, those are both really common motor cycles that can take passengers, worst mileage I ever got on a motorcycle was 47mpg out of the 7 motorcycles I've owned, best was a steady 72mpg out of a Honda cl 160.

OK, but the 5-year, 85K mile AVERAGE for my Insight is 70.9 mpg :-) Motorcycles I've had - last was an 850 Suzuki - would do closer to 40-50 mpg. One of the smaller reasons why I haven't bothered to get another bike since that one fried its electrical system - the main reason is that I've usually got a dog along these days.

Oh, yah, your insight is a two seater, maybe you should have 16 cans ;)

No, just the other way around. Look at the legend down at the bottom. (You'll need the large image to read it.) For the cars & motorcycle, the cans are for just the driver, then there's a little bar above that shows how many cans for X number of passengers. So I would get maybe 5 or 6 cans normally, but only 3 for the rare occasions when I carry a passenger - other than the aforementioned dog, of course :-)

I would really like the option of a 1-passenger car, if it could get say half again the mpg of the 2-seater Insight.

Nice catch jamesqf. I didn't even notice that hah!

Werd, I was about to comment that I don't like the way the data is presented.. big movers (boat, plane, coach) are broken down by per-passenger, fully booked(with the big fuel cans) but then the automobiles are shown with just one occupant with the big fuel cans. Then it shows tiny, subtle lines illustrating consumption per person with 1 or 2 or 3 passengers, but the SUV can carry 4 passengers and that isn't shown at all.

Overall a very unclear and misleading presentation of data. If they're trying to make a point of some sort, they discredit themselves when they present data in an unclear fashion.

FWIW, I rode motorcycles for 15 years in the SF Bay Area, 20,000 mi/year. They ranged from 750 to 1200cc, and the only bike to get less than 50 mpg avg. was the 1200 Bandit.

Maybe part of the reason for the weird mpg numbers is that they're assuming only highway mpg? I imagine motorbikes would actually do rather well just sitting at a somewhat conservative constant speed.

It's likely because cargo trains carry tonage and efficiency is measured as gallons per mile per ton, while passenger trains carry items (people) where efficiency is measured as gallons per mile per person. It's an apples and oranges thing.

Also, cargo is stacked and packed very efficiently, while passengers need lots of room, need bathrooms and swimming pools and ballrooms, etc. The cargo's crew is around 15-30 people doing multiple jobs, while on a cruise ship for 3000 passengers there are 1200 crew members. All of those people need food and fresh water.
I'd bet that the cruise ship uses the same amount of fuel total as a cargo ship of similar size, but the cargo ship is actually doing something productive. The "cargo" on a cruise ship is lighter, but the engines are burdened with a huge electrical load for lights, cooking, movie theaters, A/C.