Well I quite agree about car drivers - especially when we consider the driving style of some of them (eg keeping the fuel pedal pressed when approaching a red light that aint going to change colour anytime soon).
But I think there's an excellent opportunity for further research into train power management too.
On diesel systems, the way that the power demands on the engines are not allocated efficiently across the power sources leads to massive waste. For example, the demands of all the non-motive-power facilities (eg Train Heating & lighting) may be better served by one engine running at high revs while stationary, rather than all of them running at a moderate speed below turbo speeds.
There seems to have been more work done on understanding power losses in electrified systems but I understand, sadly, that many findings are not actually implemented. One of the biggest savings would come from dynamic block switching of the power. This removes all the power leakage to ground when there is no train on the block. It also removes many electrical safety hazards which are often discussed on here.
