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In the winter I spend lots of time out west snowboarding and I'm considering whether or not to fly and get a rental, drive my Prius, or drive my Civic.

I don't really want to put 10,000 miles on my Prius (depreciation from 10,000 to 20,000 miles makes it the worst option financially), I could drive the civic which has 120,000 miles on it and not lose much value and it drives as well as anything in the snow plus I could hit resorts on the way out and back that I haven't been to before.

So my question is, how much would I be saving (or not saving) in the fly vs drive scenario. Assuming 35 mpg in the Civic versus flying from Chicago to Reno via phoenix on America West.

Is there a way to calculate gallons used per passenger when flying I guess is my question?

You will probably find your answer in terrapass.com

Pierre M.

According to TerraPass:

Round trip flight: 1,305 lbs
Driving it in a Prius: 1,055 lbs
Driving it in a Civic: 1,650 lbs

Who cares about the devaluation of the Prius? It doesn't matter a whit if you're keeping it forever. :D

lbs of what? Fuel?
.
I had heard, possibly here, that the newer more efficient planes
were getting the butt-miles-per-gallon when fully loaded up
toward and maybe even beyond 70 or so. And thus that I alone
in the prius would be less economical. But I haven't seen the
latest figures, and there are so many other issues w/ flying
these days that I'm not going to sweat it. Especially if it
means not sitting next to someone's squalling brat for five
hours.
.
_H*

You need to factor in your time too. 10,000 miles at 60mph is 166 hours of driving vs 10 hours in plane + 6 hours in the airports. From a cost point of view, flying that distance is cheaper.

AFAIK he means 10,000 miles over the course of a season, representing 3 round trips. Each run is about 3,200 miles total, so it will take 53 - 58 hours total, or about 28 hours in each direction.

The CO2 calculations I gave above are based on a single round trip.

One source I found in Wikipedia (a quote which is unsourced, for what it's worth) is that the average passenger fleet in the US achieved 49 passenger-miles per gallon in 1998. Some other rough calculations I did after digging up some specific aircraft operating data show a little higher -- in the mid-50s.

A lot goes into this though that can't be assigned to a national average. The route is one consideration. The shorter the route, the higher the fuel consumption per passenger mile, as most fuel is burned during takeoff.

Aircraft takeoff weights are a big consideration, as there's a fine balance between payload and fuel load. Also, even though you can calculate the great circle distance between the points, rarely do domestic aircraft fly strictly point-to-point. There's a lot of routing around weather, airspace, traffic, and approach/departure procedures. And, taxi-out and -in time and distance come in to play. Essentially, the longer the flight, the higher the FE, but the higher the consumption, too.

Canuck's got it right. The more important calculation is the time factor.

Hi All:

___There is the time vs. the CO2 and this is a key point. On the $ side of the equation, airline tickets are not cheap nowadays either. There is AMTRAK which is probably lower then all other forms although I have no idea if it is or not? AMTRAK for 2 days from one side of the country to the other is not a fun ride either but it beats the Greyhound doing the same :rolleyes:

___Good Luck

___Wayne

Wayne--

I found another note that AMTRAK gets 39 p-mpg. Better than the average US automobile, but not as good as most of us can get...

As best I can tell, diesel buses get the best FE per passenger among US long-haul modes. I see p-mpg figures here in the 200s.

Hi HCHIN:

___Thanks for the info! Did that come from a WIKI or somewhere else? I did some back of the envelope stuff figuring a GreyHound holds 65 and pulls 5 mpg. The numbers are even larger then 200! :rolleyes:

___Unfortunately, riding the Greyhound is one horrid way to cross the country in my experience. I used to take one from central Iowa back to Chicago and back again. It was one hell of a nightmarish overnight ride even when I was a spry young buck unlike today ;)

___Good Luck

___Wayne

Wayne--

Yeah, everything I've quoted is from here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_efficiency_in_transportation

I should add the caveat that anything in Wikipedia is subject to verification, but your back-of-the-envelope numbers roughly amount to what they quote, so there you go.

And yes, I can't see Greyhound as a useful alternative for long-haul routes, either. Maybe east coast...

Thanks for the replies, exactly the info I was looking for.

The lost time really is only between chicago and colorado, the rest of the drive out would be hopping along from resort area to resort area.

I've looked at taking amtrak, if they stay on schedule, my experience with the trains is very good, but if they get off schedule then they are subject to waiting for every freight train in their way.

A word of warning, never depend on AMTRAK to be anywhere close to ontime. Their on time ratings suck and Chicago's one of the worst. One option is to fly on a newer airliner (777 or newer), connect on a turboprop (not an RJ), and rent a Prius or economical car. That may be your best bet in terms of overall FE and hassle.