The Thursday Aug 12th WSJ had a report on the various airlines and airliners giving their seat miles / gallon of fuel. I have often been skeptical of the various fuel consumption figures put out by the various groups with an axe to grind. The source that the WSJ used was 2009 US DOT figures. However the report did not make it clear whether NM or Statute miles were as both were mentioned. So take these numbers as you will. First some observations to muddy the waters.
1. From the WSJ article
A. The average major airline fuel consumption is about 64 seat miles / gallon. Delta’s average is 60, A 767-400ER is 96.9 (configuration unknown) for a 3450 mile trip, a B737-900 (cattle car all coach sardine packing) is about 99 for a 1150 mile trip. (note WSJ did mix Nautical Miles and statute miles in report and hope they did not mix them up in their report).
B. Mileage is very dependent of passenger loads due to the additional weight of more passengers requiring more fuel reducing the mileage. (ex B727 empty burns about 1.5 times fuel full of passengers vs empty for any stage length, B767 about 1.4 times)
C. Short trips take more fuel because climbing from sea level to 10K ft takes about 2-1/2 to 3 times for the same distance as it does fuel in cruise (ex climb to 10K ft 1200 gallons cruise same distance 400 gallons) . Also lower cruise altitude uses more fuel. (Ex Shuttle flights BOS – NYC – WASH depends on aircraft type but cruising at 18K 300/100 miles –at 38K 125/100miles).
D. Above a certain distance fuel mileage goes down because it takes extra fuel to carry fuel.
2. From Amtrak JUNE 2010 performance report.
A. Available seat miles 1,045,901,000. There is no disclosure how PV or sleeper seats are counted.
B. Revenue train miles 3,118,000.
C. this gives an average of 335.5 revenue seats per train. There is no breakdown between electric and diesel operation however 335 is close to an Acela capacity.
D. diesel gallons per mile were 2.3 so this equals to 145.8 seat miles per gallon.
E. No adjustment was given for long trains with 2 or more locomotives.
F. A better figure would be a breakdown of fuel used by each type car and some application of the non revenue cars carried. AMTRAK cannot at this time provide a route/train consumption figure but I believe that will be available in the future.
G. The track profile is not considered such as CHI – STL vs DEN – SFO.
3. Road travel is fairly straight forward by using EPA highway mileage which I believe can be 10 – 20% higher than reality. (I drive conservatively and mileage is about 10% less than sticker). Although energy content of gasoline is about 10% less than diesel and JET-A per gallon (weighs less) the additional petroleum to produce the gasoline may even total oil consumption out.
Vehicle mileage seat miles/gal
55 seat bus 5 275
50 seat bus 5 250
38 seat MCI bus 5 190
4 seat auto 40 160
AMTRAK 148.5
6 – Van (mine) 21.2 127.2
4 per car 30 120
B737-900 cattle car 99
B737 -126Pass 68
Airline average 64
2 – Sports car 30 60
Individual in car 10 – 40
A 4 seat auto gets 40 MPG? While I'm sure you can find a couple of brands that fit that parameter, it sure is not even close to the norm. When you compare mass transit to private automobiles you have to take into consideration that mass transit fills most of the seats most of the time. Private automobiles are single occupant most of the time. Stand on the side of the road of your choice and observe the traffic. Most are single occupant and about a third of the vehicles are single occupant SUVs.
A meaningful comparison among the transportation options requires a much more detailed investigation.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
About half of Greyhound's buses are MCI D4500 and G4500 buses. They seat 55 passengers. Their Prevost X3-45s seat 50. Their load factor appears to be about 60%.
Delta's load factor last month was 88.3. Airtran's was 86.4. American's was 88.6 for June, domestic flights.
Can you explain:
blue streak 1 When the present Amtrak order for the new Baggage, Bag dorms, and sleepers is added to the AMTRK fleet there may be more seats available for the same length train
The load factor is a real issue/problem. Amtrak's prez says that the trains are running "full" yet the load factor can't crack 60%. It looks like Greyhound runs about 60% as well. This suggests that there in something intrinsic in the kind of network Amtrak and Greyhound operate that makes load factors much about 60% nearly impossible. So, calculating vehicle miles per gallon is really kind of meaningless. It's passenger miles per gallon that get the job done.
Too bad we don't have fuel by Amtrak route.
Amtrak is not going to win the "green" game with 55 ton, 4 axle passenger cars.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
This post cleared see later post
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Due to some problems with my computer I will repost my last post then clear it.
oltmanndInteresting numbers. About half of Greyhound's buses are MCI D4500 and G4500 buses. They seat 55 passengers. Their Prevost X3-45s seat 50. Their load factor appears to be about 60%. Thanks for the numbers I edited original post. Delta's load factor last month was 88.3. Airtran's was 86.4. American's was 88.6 for June, domestic flights. These loads come about because of 1. a very smart hub and spoke system so seats can be controlled by substituting equipment and 2. varying number of flights to each destination from each hub. Can you explain: blue streak 1 When the present Amtrak order for the new Baggage, Bag dorms, and sleepers is added to the AMTRK fleet there may be more seats available for the same length trainReplacing old baggage cars with new is a wash. Adding baggage-dorms in place of any other non-revenue car is also a wash. I must be missing something Changing to a Baggage Dorm allows the viewliner sleeper space used for off duty crew (6-14 ? ) in present sleepers to be sold without changing train length. As well unused dorm rooms may be sold if other sleeper space full. Adds revenue seat miles available without any additional cars. Adding sleepers is worse than adding coaches to the fleet in terms of seats per train foot. Yes that is true. Someone needs to do a study on number of coach seats in a car and the fare and compare that to a sleeper both minimum room load and maximum load I dn't have the time. The load factor is a real issue/problem. Amtrak's prez says that the trains are running "full" yet the load factor can't crack 60%. It looks like Greyhound runs about 60% as well. This suggests that there in something intrinsic in the kind of network Amtrak and Greyhound operate that makes load factors much about 60% nearly impossible. The 60% load factor is very hard nut to crack. I read that in the 50s - 70s airline loads ran 45% in slow season to 60% in high demand times. Even X-mas, Thanksgiving, and Easter could not break 75%. The flights then were more point to point. (Atlanta went from 75% originations and destination to now almost the opposite of 25% O&Ds). Since Amtrak has no hub and spoke operation but point to point with many stops there is no way to exceed 60%. My wife rode Crescent ATL - Charlottesville several years ago and had a seat to herself but was told by train man sold ut CVS - WASH. She took it last winter with a seat mate and train much fuller. Now more last minute travelers can book thru CVS So, calculating vehicle miles per gallon is really kind of meaningless. It's passenger miles per gallon that get the job done. Well go ahead!! Too bad we don't have fuel by Amtrak route. Hopefully when Amtrak's satellite tracking of locomotives is fully activated they will publish that figure! Amtrak is not going to win the "green" game with 55 ton, 4 axle passenger cars.
Thanks for the numbers I edited original post.
These loads come about because of 1. a very smart hub and spoke system so seats can be controlled by substituting equipment and 2. varying number of flights to each destination from each hub.
Changing to a Baggage Dorm allows the viewliner sleeper space used for off duty crew (6-14 ? ) in present sleepers to be sold without changing train length. As well unused dorm rooms may be sold if other sleeper space full. Adds revenue seat miles available without any additional cars.
Adding sleepers is worse than adding coaches to the fleet in terms of seats per train foot.
Yes that is true. Someone needs to do a study on number of coach seats in a car and the fare and compare that to a sleeper both minimum room load and maximum load I dn't have the time.
The load factor is a real issue/problem. Amtrak's prez says that the trains are running "full" yet the load factor can't crack 60%. It looks like Greyhound runs about 60% as well. This suggests that there in something intrinsic in the kind of network Amtrak and Greyhound operate that makes load factors much about 60% nearly impossible.
The 60% load factor is very hard nut to crack. I read that in the 50s - 70s airline loads ran 45% in slow season to 60% in high demand times. Even X-mas, Thanksgiving, and Easter could not break 75%. The flights then were more point to point. (Atlanta went from 75% originations and destination to now almost the opposite of 25% O&Ds).
Since Amtrak has no hub and spoke operation but point to point with many stops there is no way to exceed 60%. My wife rode Crescent ATL - Charlottesville several years ago and had a seat to herself but was told by train man sold ut CVS - WASH. She took it last winter with a seat mate and train much fuller. Now more last minute travelers can book thru CVS
So, calculating vehicle miles per gallon is really kind of meaningless. It's passenger miles per gallon that get the job done.
Well go ahead!!
Hopefully when Amtrak's satellite tracking of locomotives is fully activated they will publish that figure!
If I were to guess, a corridor train such as the Hiawatha, running one locomotive, uses about 1.5 gallons to the mile.
The average passenger load a while back was around 100 per train. That train, then, used to be at 2000 BTU/passenger-mile. Recently, with the adding of cars (train length is up from 4 cars to 6 cars) in response to demand, the average load (based on passenger boardings) is up around 150 per train. Thus they have improved to 1400 BTU/passenger-mile (adding the two cars probably changes fuel consumption very little on account of the weight and aero drag factors of the ends of the trains). Intercity buses, however, are reported in the 800-900 BTU range.
With this business of load factor, airlines "turn away" a lot of business (ever try getting a cheap airfare on the day you want to travel?) because they are "the only game in town", and I don't know if we want to make trains comparably inconvenient by running such high load factors. With respect to transit system load factors, they are nowhere near 100%, even though you think "all the seats are taken whenever I get on!" Load factors are more around 25%, and there are operational reasons for this, mainly the directional character of the daily commute and the need to provide minimum levels of off-peak service.
By comparison, cars are said to average about 3000 BTU/passenger-mile and airlines about 3500 BTU/passenger mile. On that basis, I would accept the premise that a well-patronized one-locomotive corridor train, on average, does about twice as good as an auto and somewhat more than twice as good as an airline, and a similar assumption of fuel efficiency is made in the Vision Report.
But the Amtrak network, on average, does not do as well as 1400 BTU/passenger mile -- figures I have seen put it around 2750 BTU/passenger-mile.
There is also a lot of discussion regarding confirmation bias in these types of assessment, the need to get independent confirmation of reported figures of "those with an axe to grind." The Bureau of Transportation Statistics has posted much more optimistic BTU/passenger-mile figures than Department of Energy for Amtrak, but one knock on the Bureau of Transportation Statistics numbers is that they count electric kilowatts for the NEC trains on an equal BTU basis as Diesel, not taking in account substantial losses in energy conversion and electric transmission. I would put more credence in the Department of Energy (ORNL, I believe), as these are physicists who don't have any reason to advance any mode of transportation over any other.
On the other hand, DOE-ORNL was once reporting figures of around 4500 BTU/passenger-mile for Amtrak, but I believe those numbers were revised downwards (i.e. improved). It may have been a combination of the introduction of the Acela train that seemed to greatly boost electric consumption, together with a rather pessimistic figure on electric generation efficiency. Amtrak seems to be improving in having reduced BTU/passenger-mile as of late. That change may not reflect any change in technology but rather that high fuel prices has put energy efficiency on "Amtrak's radar screen", and Amtrak press releases suggest the changes are more in operation, such as not running HEP as much and plugging waiting trains into ground power more often.
Why Amtrak doesn't "knock the ball out of the park" in energy efficiency is a combination of Don's 55 ton 4-axle Amcoaches, and the expedient of NPCC ("cabbage" cars) adds considerably to weight and aero drag of corridor trains. Again, no one has any route-specific figures on these trains, and it is not for lack of my trying to find any of this out. No one knows how much fuel is used by Hiawatha or Pacific Surfliner, two well-patronized corridor runs representative of Amtrak putting its best foot forward in the department of being green, let along what the new Talgo consists will use, especially when they are putting a locomotive at each end of what is in effect a 6-car train (12 short Talgo cars), getting 110 MPH speed and rapid acceleration to maintain schedules at the expense of fuel.
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
Paul MilenkovicIf I were to guess, a corridor train such as the Hiawatha, running one locomotive, uses about 1.5 gallons to the mile.
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