Transport Direct website

[Mojo]

The other week, myself and another went to see family on the South Coast. Partly due to the fact they live a good 40 min walk from the station, and partly due to me not wanting to spend the best part of two hours in a cramped and natty 158 with probably no air con, I opted to drive.

Messing around on different route planning websites, I came across the "Calculate your CO2 emissions" function on the Government's Transport Direct website, and it showed this

and I couldn't quite understand what I was seeing. I wonder where on earth they get their figures about rail travel from - how can carrying 2 passengers in a small car make it more environmentally friendly per passenger than public transport? Not only that, but surely it's rubbish anyway, as the train or bus is going to run with or without me, but if I take the train, my car emissions will be nil?!

 

[rail-britain]

They are only comparing like with like
Yes, the train, bus, or coach will still run but it does not affect your choice
However, you should be aware that these figures EXCLUDE incidental calcuations
For example, the affect of sourcing the resources, fuel, and so on
I noted an recent example, with a disclaimer that the CO2 figures for transportation from China had been excluded!

 

[Nick W]

We saved the environment and a good bit of money by taking a Yarris full of 5 people up to Loughborough on saturday. I even drove us as far as Cambridge.

Looking at the mass of person to mass of vehicle ratio, it's no surprise that the car uses less energy than the train. The car is also smaller, more aerodynamic and only made a few stops. The train would also probably have kept the lights inside it on and would have been heating up a large area while in the car no lights were kept on unnecessarily.

Note that to do the same route by train would have involved a bus anyway due to the bridge collapse. The railway is so stingy it won't endorse tickets via London so it's almost satisfying to boycott it.

 

[Metroland]

Actually no Nick, basic laws of physics: rails have less rolling resistance, and the train itself creates a less of an area (overall) which creates less drag compared to the equivalent number of cars.

The government gets its figures from a 35% load factor on the railway, which is all the passengers divided by the total number of spare seats. So on the face of it, a very efficient small car would produce less CO2 with a load of 2/3 or more per car. Fact is, most cars have one person in them. The rural lines and off peak services drags the load factor down for rail, hence the need for subsidy.

If you took the car, instead of public transport which is booked to run, you are creating additional CO2 - the bus/train runs anyway. I believe in the small print that website mentions this.

Moreover, if you are in a well loaded, efficient electric train, you would create an awful lot less pollution than even the very best fully loaded car on the market. Figures below.

The other thing to note, is those figures don’t take into account overall vehicle life. The fact is, a rail vehicles which does millions of miles and carries thousands of passengers, uses a lot less energy per vehicle than a car which only lasts maybe 150,000 miles and carries mostly one. And the other thing is most car journeys are less than 5 miles. I’ve actually seen some really interesting calculations that say in some cases, a meat eater walking 2 miles to the shops uses up more energy than the car driver based on operating fuel use. The figures didn’t include oil drilling, maintenance of the road/vehicle, and other factors for the car, so it was a little biased. Whereas the calculations for the meat loving human included the energy cost of producing and transporting the food – which is substantial!

The problem is with using the 35% overall figure for rail is it’s misleading as it’s an average based on current use. However generally, it’s more efficient overall to attract people to public transport and create a higher load factor, indeed, you would reduce the subsidy for a start, use less land, and fewer resources.

BR Class 321 9.4 KW/h per mile (Vehicle MPG 4.69), with 299 people seated that’s 1402.31 MPG eqv
BR Class 166 Vehicle MPG 2.99, with 275 seated, that’s 822.25 MPG eqv
BR Class 390 29 KW/h per mile (Vehicle MPG 1.51), with 447 people seated that’s 674.97 MPG eqv

Renault Clio Hatchback, 47.9 MPG, with 4 people that’s 191.6 MPG eqv
Ford Mondeo diesel, 46.3MPG, with 5 people that’s 231.5 MPG eqv

Boeing 737-400 0.68 MPG, with 149 passengers that’s 101.32 MPG eqv

[Source DfT and What Car magazine]

http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/dft_railways/documents/page/dft_railways_611287.pdf