Electric Public Transit Efficiency
Shifts from private to public transport (train, trolleybus or tram) have the potential for large gains in efficiency in terms of individual miles per kWh.
Research shows people do prefer trams, because they are quieter and more comfortable and perceived as having higher status.
Therefore, it may be possible to cut liquid fossil fuel consumption in cities through the use of electric trams.
Trams may be the most energy-efficient form of public transportation, with rubber wheeled vehicles using 2/3 more energy than the equivalent tram, and run on electricity rather than fossil fuels.
In terms of net present value, they are also the cheapest—Blackpool trams are still running after 100-years, but combustion buses only last about 15-years.
Read more about this topic: Electric Vehicle
Famous quotes containing the words electric, public, transit and/or efficiency:
“A sociosphere of contact, control, persuasion and dissuasion, of exhibitions of inhibitions in massive or homeopathic doses...: this is obscenity. All structures turned inside out and exhibited, all operations rendered visible. In America this goes all the way from the bewildering network of aerial telephone and electric wires ... to the concrete multiplication of all the bodily functions in the home, the litany of ingredients on the tiniest can of food, the exhibition of income or IQ.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“It is sometimes called the City of Magnificent Distances, but it might with greater propriety be termed the City of Magnificent Intentions.... Spacious avenues, that begin in nothing, and lead nowhere; streets, mile-long, that only want houses, roads, and inhabitants; public buildings that need but a public to be complete; and ornaments of great thoroughfares, which only lack great thoroughfares to ornamentare its leading features.”
—Charles Dickens (18121870)
“My esoteric doctrine, is that if you entertain any doubt, it is safest to take the unpopular side in the first instance. Transit from the unpopular, is easy ... but from the popular to the unpopular is so steep and rugged that it is impossible to maintain it.”
—William Lamb Melbourne, 2nd Viscount (17791848)
“Nothing comes to pass in nature, which can be set down to a flaw therein; for nature is always the same and everywhere one and the same in her efficiency and power of action; that is, natures laws and ordinances whereby all things come to pass and change from one form to another, are everywhere and always; so that there should be one and the same method of understanding the nature of all things whatsoever, namely, through natures universal laws and rules.”
—Baruch (Benedict)