Cars are more fuel-efficient than trains?

So claims a study reported in the Telegraph. The Telegraph article claims that trains have increased in weight: "Virgin's SuperVoyager rolling-stock is estimated to be 40 per cent heavier per seat than the ageing 125s it replaced." Further, "Engineers at Lancaster University said trains had failed to keep up with the motor and aviation industries in reducing fuel needs." This is entirely believable. It reflects the constant effect of the market operating on automobile design and the much more statist approach to railroad procurement. Also in that vein, "Roger Ford, of Modern Railways magazine, said one reason for declining energy efficiency was the impact of health and safety and disability access regulations."

The report continues, "I know this will generate howls of protest, but at present a family of four going by car is about as environmentally friendly as you can get." They include a nice chart worth a look. I would like to look at the numbers, but I would not be surprised if the constant application of engineering effort has improved automobile effeciency substantially while regulations have reduced the effeciency of trains.

Despite this there are questions that the Telegraph didn't explore. Paul Marston, their transport correspondent, gets some criticism from other sources, but most of it is not on point. "Friends of The Earth expressed surprise at the findings, which it said were not in line with previous studies." This may or may not be true, but the notion that studies are not in lock step agreement tells us nothing about which to find credible. Tony Bosworth, of FoE, is quoted as saying, "The main problem is not long-distance travel but the 25 per cent of car journeys which are less than two miles. Those are the least efficient and often the most polluting." I don't know how transportable these statistics are, but the Edinburgh to London trip is not a typical automobile trip, both in terms of its distance or in terms of the number of likely passengers. Bosworth wants to compare apples as well as oranges, and clearly a thorough analysis, of which this Lancaster University study is only a part, would consider not just a sample drive, but would analyze various kinds of drives in terms of their alternatives. The article has nothing to say on intra-city rail. Finally they quote Bosworth as saying, "Cars cause congestion, disrupt communities and are much less safe than trains." All of which would be part of a total analysis of transport alternatives, but does nothing to challenge the claims made by this study that trains cease to be fuel effecient. Not mentioned in the article is the question of how many people actually are riding in cars. I get the impression that the study is presuming more riders in cars than I would have expected, but that might be accurate for the British experience. Some examination, or a nice chart, on the number of riders per mile of travel at least, would be useful. They also seem to assume that the VW Passat is a typical vehcile. Is it? I'd like a variety of vehicles compared based on their prevelence on the road.

What is inescapable is that the study's claims that automobile effeciency increases and railroad effecincy descreases may have made automobiles a much better option than car alternative advocates might have expected. This includes me. I will be interested to see just how widely this analysis can be applied beyond a Passat traveling lengthwise across England. Most notably, the average commute will be my key interest in any analysis I attempt. See my two posts on rail here and here.

The Telegraph also includes an editorial on the subject with this final line, "the environmentalist lobby, traditionally as rigid in its thinking as Victorian missionaries, will have to come up with some new slogans. May we make a modest suggestion? "Save the planet. Jump into your car."