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Passenger planes are much more fuel efficient per passenger-mile than single-occupancy cars. Where did you get this idea from? Flying being more efficient than
by papaf 10y ago
Passenger planes are much more fuel efficient per passenger-mile than single-occupancy cars.
Where did you get this idea from? Flying being more efficient than rolling doesn't fit with what little physics I know.
Do you have a better source than:
http://adl.stanford.edu/aa260/Lecture_Notes_files/transport_fuel_consumption.pdf http://adl.stanford.edu/aa260/Lecture_Notes_files/transport_...
I would be genuinely interested if you have other references to transport fuel efficiency.
- mikeash 10y agoJust from general knowledge. You can verify it by googling "$AIRLINERMODEL passenger miles per gallon" for various aircraft types. Or Wikipedia has a good roundup: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft Typical values are 70+ PMPG, and 100+ isn't uncommon. (I just made up the PMPG acronym, so don't go trying to search with it.) The most efficient gasoline car you can buy today will do about 56MPG. Flying isn't more efficient than rolling, but big is more efficient than small, and high is more efficient than low. Cars and airliners are massively different in ways beyond just rolling versus flying. Note that small aircraft definitely do not have this efficiency advantage. A 737 gets to carry 180 or so people at a time and travel at 35,000 feet, and that's a big win over a car carrying one person near sea level. Busses and trains win big over airliners, because they get the same scaling advantages without the disadvantage of having to use aerodynamic lift.