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I left for work about 10 minutes early today, but that didn't actually do any good. There was still a string of impatient (but not too obnoxious) driving behind me between the limit and 5-over until we hit the highway. I stuck to my guns, though, and pulled off a 41.7mpg segment with light DWL and careful throttle management. It was pretty funny, though. There was one woman in a small white SUV of some kind who insisted on parking not more than a car length from my bumper, whom I managed to shrug off. When the road broke out to 2 lanes she swerved around to the right (I had to turn left) and then got back in front of me to take off, probably doing 55 in a 45 to get 'ahead.' Know where she ended up? Right smack in front of me on the ramp behind a semi :p . I don't think she saw me smile and give a friendly wave.

I didn't check, but I'm willing to bet I was in the 44-45mpg range before I started throwing fuel overboard to get on the highway and make the short climb to the office. With a little luck I'll be able to meet or exceed the 38mpg return trip I got yesterday by focussing on the hypermiling basics. I think my car thanks me...she's been running and shifting silky-smooth since I backed off a bit, and still returning numbers that most wouldn't believe. Happy hypermiler over here!

Hi Tim:

___Given your New England location, I have this picture of winding, tree lined - blind cornered, single lane roads traversing mountainous terrain and not a thing you can do about it. Although I would love to travel everyone’s route at least once to get the flavor of what we all go through, I have the feeling your shortening of the route last month and coming close to 40 makes is just enough to keep you from pulling your hair out on a daily basis.

___One thing I do is leave about an hour earlier than I need to in the morning and 2 hours early in the afternoon (when on night shifts) heading in and the traffic lightens heavily for the commute in. Coming home can be a SOB depending on if it’s an 8 hour day or 12 (8 hours day’s means I drive right into the meat of Chicago’s finest). I hope you can use a little flex schedule with your own so as to help with the stress and to improve back to your own best practices whenever possible. Arriving an hour to an hour and a half early might seem a bit nuts but the bosses take notice and things go a little smoother at work in case you have to relive someone like we do at the nuclear plant. That hour + early to work is a waste of your life in most cases but the lowered stress from the much lighter traffic makes it worth it in my case?

___Good Luck

___Wayne

Wayne,
That's a pretty accurate description of the first ~12 miles of my 17 mile commute. It would be a fantastic route if not for a few key things: first is the fact that I have to accomodate traffic somewhat, which has no place to be but behind me. Second is the hills, which are in my favor in the morning but very much against me in the afternoon. The third is the placement of the dozen or so stop signs, many of which result in coming to a stop right after descending a short grade. This places me in the worst possible situation of zero KE to trade for PE on the climb. It hurts but there's not much to be done about it, as the only alternatives put me on more heavily travelled roads and at least 5 miles out of my way. They might be worth playing with but I'm willing to bet that slightly better FE would come at the expense of more fuel burned, which I'm sure you agree would be pointless.

As it is I have my day shifted all the way to the beginning of what our flex-time policy allows, which gets me out the door at ~0620hrs if I'm on it. I can definitely see the advantage to getting out the door a half hour earlier than that (or more) as I've been on the roads at that time and they are positively deserted, with traffic signals in a favorable mode of operation (flashing yellow as opposed to going red and staying that way for no apparent reason). That would take some absolutely killer motivation on my part, but morning FE could be equally killer.

In the end it's well worth it either way. Staying away from the heaviest highway traffic puts my mind more at ease, and each tank lasts at least a few extra days. There also happens to be a decent grocery store not a few hundred feet out of my way, which pretty much eliminates the need to make a dedicated and inefficient (BIG HILL) round-trip a minimum of once a week. Oh, and they also hid all of CT's "cheap" (only charge one arm, not both) gas stations along these roads.

As with any route, this is a never-ending work in progress. No doubt there's FE yet to be found though careful tweaking.

hey brick do you sometimes look at a map and try to figure out if you can find a better route to work? for me i decided to stick with the one with the least turns ( 3 for me ;) but here are a few variables i use when picking roads and tallying up the total giving points and then picking other routes and giving points for that as well. Then I look at my chosen routes and pick them accordingly to what gives the best fuel economy.

lights & light priority (like you learn which roads gets to have green all the time, until this one #@($@(#@ steps up the sensors and then goes red on you with NO WARNING :( (

stops: obviously you want to avoid these roads, unless you want to risk it like I used to do back when i took roads that had those :P (not stopping completely at the 4 way stop sign)

turns: I'm not talking about going around the corner... more like you have to brake then turn at an intersection or another road .... I avoid turns as much as I can when route picking.

traffic & lanes: Well the less traffic the better, since I try to pulse and glide every chance there isn't some car behind me. If you have two lanes, I sometimes take advantage of it and pulse and glide and make the guy change lanes (or I change lanes if I'm not in a bad mood :) hypermilers can be nice too! ) But if you got one lane, and there are cars behind you and you decide to hypermile... you have balls ;) (or for the ladies... your sure in a b*tc*y mood tonight!

hills up & down (two seperate counters) what goes up must go down! be sure to complete that equation! what you can compare though is if route A has more uphills than route B and if your journey home from work allows you to cheat this hill and gain +1 to downhill!!! (if you didn't get that RPG joke then what that means is... you can go down 3 hills on your way to work and on your way back home you managed to find a route that allowed you to only climb 2 hills instead of 3 but at the cost of more travelling distance.... blah blah)

Now by looking at all these variables (please note and I just realized this... this is for CITY DRIVING :) you can decide how much % each one contributes to your fuel economy. From there on hopefully you'll find the best route for the best FE!

if you wanted to get more advanced you can add more variables like I have, after trying a particular route:

# times I FASED:
# times I keyed:
# of 1st gear starts:
hills went up:
hills went down:
Did I brake a lot?
Lights encountered:
Lights stopped at:
Any Idling? If so roughly how much in minutes?
Distance:
FE recieved on this segment:

So many things to mess around with just to get the 50 mpg tank! so ya sometimes i take a break and just stick with one route ;)