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[quote user="Railway Man"] [quote user="Bucyrus"] I just skimmed the article at the newsstand, so I need to ask, what does the article conclude beyond the winner of the fuel efficiency contest?  I am sure that all three forms of transport are as fuel-efficient as they can be in economic terms.  Is there an onus to go beyond the economic limits of fuel efficiency?  In pure economic terms, including fuel cost, it seems to me that each of the three forms, where they are being applied, is better than the other two.  So I am not sure I understand the point of comparing their fuel efficiency. [/quote]  <OL> <LI>Helps to guide shipper investment decisions.  When you build a factory, you have a transportation mode wrapped around it.  You want to know what the trend lines are for your transportation mode so you know if you'll still be able to make a profit if the cost of oil doubles. <LI>Helps to know the trends so one can create good long-term business strategy and public policy decisions, no matter who you are. <LI>Oil has political implications -- some of it comes from unstable countries -- which also helps guide public and private investment decisions because you want to do a "sensitivity analysis" before you invest a dollar, i.e., you want to gauge your risk that the future costs you estimate are going to turn out wrong.  You also want to know it because you want to know how beholden we're going to be to adversaries in the future, and the magnitude of effects on our economic health and national security. <LI>Helps to project health costs.  NOX, SOX, and PM (particulate matter) emissions have quanitifiable public health costs associated with them.  The higher the emissions, the higher the Medicare, Medicaid, and private health insurance bills.  Higher fuel consumption = higher emissions = higher health-care costs.</LI></OL> RWM [/quote]   Well that all certainly makes sense, but I was just wondering if the article was only posing a kind of trivia question, or what else the author may have wanted the reader to take away from the article.  It makes sense to compare the fuel efficiency of cars, for instance, when there are only a few variables such as the cost of the car, what the owner needs to haul, miles driven, etc.  But as you mentioned in an earlier post, comparing fuel efficiency between transportation modes, each with completely different physical plants, seems fraught with problems in making the comparison fair or meaningful.  Particularly, I wonder how one would gauge the financial benefit of an increase in fuel efficiency that is accomplished by a greater increase in the cost of operations or plant.
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