True cost of transportation

Calculating the true cost of our existing transportation system is the first step to using s-clusters to create the lowest cost, most efficient path to zero carbon transportation.

As James McGreen and Joel Woodhull have shown in the Transportation section, we must:
*Make vehicles more carbon efficient
*Use vehicles more efficiently

Any competitive system to the existing system must also be:
*more convenient
*less costly

The baseline for comparison is the fossil fuel-powered personal automobile. This form of transportation is very convenient, if one can afford it. It is has a high availability factor. However, true cost of the automobile is beyond simply the gas, maintenance, insurance and registration. It also includes parking including residential parking (i.e., maintenence of garage, driveway, etc), depreciation, delays experienced in travel (above nominal travel time), the cost of accidents (beyond insurance payouts).

True cost of the automobile factors in costs borne by society through taxes, fees and additional charges to the individual driver:

Accidents (minus net insurance disbursements and direct costs as cited)
State and Local Construction, Improvements and Repair (2000)
State and Local Highway Maintenance and Operations (2000)
Parking (commercial and employer-paid, including goverment tax)
Waste Disposal
Air Pollution Damage (health costs, crops, trees, materials, etc.)
External Resource Consumption Costs
Road Noise (property value decrease and abatement)
CO2 Reduction (motor vehicles only)
Water Pollution and Hydrologic Impacts
Transportation Diversity and Equity
Barrier Effects on Pedestrians and Bicycles
Land Use Impact Costs
Roadway Land Value
Congestion Cost

If all these costs are factored in, the average personal vehicle costs the driver approximately $1.20 per mile.

As far as energy use, the average personal auto today uses 3581 BTU/passenger mile, and generates about 1 lb of CO2 per mile. A Toyota Prius uses 2250 BTU /pass. mile, and generates less than 1/2 lb of CO2 per mile. An electric vehicle uses 1607 BTU/pass. mile.

Any travel mode energy use per passenger mile depends on the "load factor" or the average occupancy of the vehicle. Although buses use 4127 BTU/pass mile, the load factor is only 9 passengers, with a typical availability that allows for increasing by five times the number of riders. A bus with 45 riders would only use 825 BTU/pass mile. However, a personal auto could only have the load factor increased by about 2.5, which would bring the minimum BTU/pass mile to 1430.

From these figures, it is clear that, a key feature of a transportation s-cluster is a fully utilized mass transit system. But how do we get there from here? The next post will show how to use s-clusters to design a transition scheme to a zero carbon transportation system.