Environmental Footprint of Buses

[QueenOfTheRoad]

Hi Everyone,

I need some help. With my book coming out in 10 days, I KNOW I'm going to get questions from the media (I already am, actually) about our "gas guzzling" bus trip, along the lines of "don't you feel guilty?" and "You get HOW many mpg?" (I'm sure a lot of these questions are from reporters driving SUVs.)

I bet RVs in general, including buses, actually leave less of an environmental footprint: We use less water, we're not heating/cooling an entire house, all the appliances are designed to be more effecient. (And our bus has solar panels on our roof.)

Do any of you know of any websites/studies/information I can use along these lines? Any salient points I've neglected? Any help would be most appreciated.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

The simple answer is that the bus is significantly more environmentally friendly than Al Gore's planes.

It exhausts less hot air than the average senator.

What more do they need to know?

[tdelorme]

Just say to anyone who ask "are you not familiar with Bio-Diesel?" If by chance some smartass says "yes." Then you just reply "well then you understand how green our bus is." If they continue to push the issue, you say "did you know we went to a nudist RV park?" I think you will do just fine girl, give um hell.

[adamdegraff]

Doreen,
this is a subject that I have spent a great deal of time considering. I cannot point you in the direction of any websites or studies on the subject, but I would like to share with you my own thought process.

My musical partner and I have a tour booked for next year that will take us over 40,000 in 8 months. We have over 200 shows in about 120 cities across the whole country. The tour was booked so that we could hop from city to city and avoid having to fly home in between each show. I think we average about 350 miles between shows. (Some are only 50 miles apart, some are 600.) Nevertheless, we have two decent options. One is to get a Toyota Prius, drive from hotel to hotel, and FedEx or UPS 50,000 CDs and DVDs over the tour to the venues. Forget the fact that this is the less comfortable option for a minute. Is it more or less environmentally friendly? Probably a little bit more, but not THAT much more. They have to wash the sheets every time I stay one night at the hotel. They have to wash my towels too. They have to keep the hot water heated to 250 ;) degrees, the pool warm, the hot tub hot, the lights on all night, the waffle iron heated up (I do like those waffles though). I have to eat EVERY meal out at a restaurant. They had to build the hotel and all the restaurants. (OK, they are there anyway, but I'm creating demand.) I have to spend hundreds of hours on the phone making reservations. (OK, I'm not exactly using that time to cut my grass at home with a scythe or planting trees, but it is wasted energy, isn't it?) I'm still burning gas, though be it only a fraction. By the way, most musical groups that start out in one small car, usually end up in multiple vehicles by the end of the tour.:eek::eek::eek: If you know what I mean.

What I get from buying a bus? I can bring my wife and kids. I don't have to live out of a suitcase. I can cook and eat healthily all year. I don't have to ship and reship so many CDs. I can do some of my traveling after the concert when I am still high and buzzed from the show. (I know, you thought I was going to say the "blow" but we aren't that kind of musical group.) By driving some at night, I avoid traffic, which saves some gas.

All of these options are better than flying. Environmentally speaking that is.

I realize your situation may be different, but I would burn twice the fuel just to be able to bring my wife and kids with me on the road.

Curious what others think about this as well.

~Adam

[QueenOfTheRoad]

Thanks so much for your replies. It's been really interesting how every interview I've done brings up the "gas guzzling" issue.

I'm slated to write an essay for the Huffington Post the week my book publishes, and I'm seriously considering writing one that addresses that issue, ie that RVs, including buses, are not the enviro-anti-christs that people seem to think they are.

So, any and all comments are welcome! (However, I think I'll skip the Al Gore thing... unless O'Reilly asks me to write for him :)

[garyde]

If the question is how can one travel and not use diesel or gas, then the answer is limited to a few options, ie; Horse, Mule, bicycle, etc.
The correct question would be why a vehicle which uses 6-7 MPG rather than a vehicle which gets 14-20 MPG.
A simple answer would be personal preference.

[Joe Cannarozzi]

The Huffington Post???????????

Your wasting your time if you think you will be able to convince that lunatic of anything she does not already spew around, and that is not saying that I believe she is sincere about any of it.

Screw all the footprint crap. Anyone who is spending time worrying about a carbon footprint is disillusioned at best and if truly concerned about that and is in a bus motoring around is a hypocrite. That is what I would say.

Lets all just sit at home and strap in at the computer and go through everything in life by virtual reality, we can have them powered by our wives with peddle powered generators like gilligan's island. And don't forget the candles the next time you bicycle to the grocery store.

If some would be defining me as an enviro aniti-christ I don't know how I will get over it.

[0533]

Pam and I have cruised in our trawler for years, up and down the waterways and lakes, Bahamas etc. Our trawler is very efficient by boating standards and gets 1.33 miles per gal burning 10.5 gal P/H.

When moving ones home over the water or over the road, the road is hugely more efficient. I would simply say that we wanted to see our country, what makes it tick. It costs $ to move across our land. It is arguably the only way to work and live on the road with any level of normalcy.

[rfoster]

Regarding the case of Adam on the road: Since the wife and kids are traveling with him, the washer, dryer, tvs, lights etc. are shut off at the house. Hey - he is using only half the juice he would be if they were home & away from him. -

Another argument - yea I know it cost a lot to run a bus tour, but it is the cost of doing business. Could you help a guy out and buy a CD? Or in your case a book?

I agree the proper response would be personal preference - so what?

[QueenOfTheRoad]

I appreciate all your responses.

My goal is not necessarily to change minds, it's just to present the other side, since a lot of people seem to have a knee-jerk reaction, assuming the bus must be horrendous for the environment, when I just don't think that's true (ie when compared with living in a home, etc.). If all I do is get some people to realize that perhaps their assumptions may not be valid, I would be thrilled. I would especially like to present any facts/studies/statistics or absent those, any reasoned opinions along those lines - again, just to get people to think.

So, I'm grateful for all your input and look forward to any more you care to give.

[Ray Davis]

You indicated in your signature you travelled 22,000 miles. That's somewhere around 3600-3700 gallons of fuel, based upon a 6MPG average (you might have done better?)

Take an average family which could easily have 4 drivers. Mom in her SUV, Dad in his muscle car and a couple of teenage drivers! I would venture that on a family-wide MPG average they are not seeing much more than 12MPG, and are probably driving in excess of 60,000 miles per year combined. So, your total footprint was less than that.

I was told by a person working for MCI bus, that fuel standard changes are coming in 2010 (I think it's 2010). They are going to require engine modifications on diesel engines. Originally our buses would have been required to be modified, however I was told the RVIA successfully argued that although our engines are similar to most over-the-road truckers, we travel on average only 7500 miles per year, vs well over 100,000's by truckers. Because of the limited mileage, it was determined smog affect by our buses was limited enough to be exempt from the engine changes.

I would argue several things in your favor:

1. Your total "footprint" is less than most families driving more than one car.
2. Your footprint was affected by overall using less energy to wash, clean, heating etc.
3. At the same time, you helped the economy in the places you visited with purchasing fuel, food, going out, site-seeing etc.

4. RV's are not driven every day, so there are many days when you're parked and your footprint contribution is zero. Unlike people commuting long distances to work 5 (or more) days per week.


Ray

[QueenOfTheRoad]

Fabulous info, Ray! I really appreciate it.

22,000 miles is indeed what we did - rounding up or down a few hundred (I really don't recall). I wanted to clarify that solely because it's important to know the 200 shoes part was accurate! (As was the passenger count - ie, only one husband.)

And... since I'm mentioning the passengers, a few of you have asked about our pets. The last of them, Morty, our cat, died 4 weeks ago. He was 19. They all had very, very long, healthy lives (Miles, the poodle in my picture died at 14 over Xmas). Tim and I feel so incredibly fortunate we got to spend a full year nearly 24/7 with them on the bus - they were such an important part of our trip. If there's a doggy heaven, surely it includes abundant vehicle travel. (Cats, not so much - maybe just a giant stationary litter box - or in our cats' case, area rug.)

[rff105]

The other day as I was passed by a Ford Diesel F-350 Super Duty I thought about how much more fuel efficient, using the boxing analogy, “Pound for Pound” our buses are.
So I did some rough calculations and “pound for pound” our buses are second only to tractor trailers in terms of fuel efficiency for the amount of mass move from one place to another per gallon of fuel. Assuming you can justify needed to move all that weight with you wherever you go, even the Prius can not touch our busses for efficiency. Someone out their may be able to come up with a better way of explaining this but here is the raw data:

Prevost – 6 mpg – 50,000 lbs
Ford Diesel F-350 Super Duty – 10 mpg – 9000 lbs
Toyota Prius Hybrid – 46 mpg – 2900 lbs

Level the playing field – I need to move 100,000 lbs 100 miles.

2 Motorhomes @ 50,000 lbs each @ 6 mpg = 33.3 gallons used
34 Prius Hybrids @ 2900 lbs each @ 46 mpg = 73.9 gallons used
11 Super Dutys @ 9000 lbs each @ 10 mpg = 110.0 gallons used

Now I agree the Prius is the most efficient way to move one person to and from work, but if you need to get 100,000 lbs 100 miles our buses are 2.2 times more efficient than a Prius and 3.3 times more efficient than at Super Duty.

[QueenOfTheRoad]

Great! (And, boy do I appreciate your doing the math for me!)

[Denny]

While attending a seminar several years ago, I had my Foretravel park in the parking lot since I was staying in it rather than a hotel room. One of the employees of the sponsoring company, upon finding out that I owned that "million dollar motor home" in the lot asked me how I can justify the cost of owning it and operating it. Her remark was "I can buy a lot of airline tickets and hotel rooms for what that thing costs you.

My reply back to was" Sally, you are 100 percent correct. You can buy a lot of airline tickets and a lot of hotel rooms for what that thing costs me but, I know who sat on my toilet last and who slept in my bed last and you don't when you are in your airplane or your hotel room.

She got this look on her face and walked away.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

To say nothing of having your own coffee in the morning, your own shower and towels, your own snacks, and virtually anything else you can stow on board instead of what you can pack in a suitcase that some TSA guy will be inspecting.

[QueenOfTheRoad]

Denny,

It never ceases to amaze me how idiotic/rude some people can be (and that's saying a lot from someone in my profession!). That woman was all that and more.

Jon,

I have to fly like two dozen times this summer for my book tour. I HATE flying. And, I doubt anyone's going to make an issue of THAT footprint I'll be leaving.

[ronwalker]

Queen Doreen, I just ran across this and thought you might want to use a couple of the points he makes. http://tdhoch.com/blog49/2008/05/30/an-open-letter-to-critics-of-our-lifestyle/

[QueenOfTheRoad]

A thousand thanks, good Squire Ron!