Efficiency per ton of freight to a gallon of fuel!

[golfournut]

In my college days in the 70s, I did a research study on the topic. This was a 3 month project. Based on 4 modes of shipping: truck, train, water and air.

At the time the trucking industry was coming out of regulation and the water usery fee had not been passed yet.

In order to keep the post short, I won't go into historical data of each or formulation of each, but if asked I'll try to answer.
Keep in mind I am going off of memory. Too lazy to dig out the report. All of the sources of the data are in the footnotes and I don't remember them.

Stand alone ton to per gallon of fuel:
1. Train
2. Water
3. Truck
4. Air
So, by itself, on the fuel weight ratio alone the train is the most efficient way to move a ton of freight per gallon of fuel burned.

Now, add in some costs such as:

Truck- maintain truck roadways and bridges.

Train- maintain locomotives, cars, track, terminals and tressels.

Water- maintain equipment, dredge, build and or maintain locks and dams

Air- maintain planes and ground equipment, build, upgrade maintain airports.

Ton per gallon of fuel with costs:
1: truck
2: water
3: train
4: air

Now at that time the government paid for the roads, bridges, dams and locks, dredging and airports. Didn't really do anything for the railway industry until the bailout which came later.

As I said, trucking was coming out of regulation and was the only mode that had a surplus in the gov. coffers. In other words, the trucking industry was paying to maintain and build the nations highways.

The waterway transporters didn't pay anything for the use or maintenance of the waterways, dams or locks until the water usery bill was passed. I "think" it maxed out at .06 per gallon over a period of time when the bill passed.

The Airline industry paid a landing tax, which of course never equalled the cost to build or maintain an airport.

The railway industry never paid anything. As far as I know, still don't. Most of the land that the track was laid on was either free, donated, purchased at way below value or stolen. Private enterprise did pay for "most" of the construction along with the telegraph companies that contracted the railways to install the polls and run the wire while laying the track.

Since the 70s when I did this research, what do you all think has changed?

 

[cjmitch]

MMM Interesting, kinda confusing but still interesting.

 

[ATeam]

Since the 70s when I did this research, what do you all think has changed?

Nothing has changed. Studies like these are as meaningless today as they were in the 70's.

 

[golfournut]

Nothing has changed. Studies like these are as meaningless today as they were in the 70's.

Nothing has changed?! My god man, did you just beam down here?

Meaningless? It's studies like these that get things done. This particular study was used along with others to help pass the water usery fee!

Something that couldn't be done in 200 years because William Penn said "keep the waterways free and clear without taxation" meanwhile George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were building the C&D canal. The free ride was ended for that particular industry after 200 years by a rookie Senate, Pete Damincie from New Mexico when he went head to head with Senator Long from Illinois that wanted to spend millions for the dam in Alton Illinois. A pet peeve project.

I could go on further about the purposes of such studies, but folks that live in a bubble or choose to exercise tunnel vision wouldn't understand.

Look around, things have change, considerably.

 

[ATeam]

Nothing has changed?! My god man, did you just beam down here?

Meaningless? It's studies like these that get things done. This particular study was used along with others to help pass the water usery fee!

No, Sir, I did not just beam down here.

Studies like these do not get things done. They get created and misused by people who have political power to get done what they want done. They have no relationship to reality beyond their propaganda value.

I know of which I speak from first hand experience (see my bio). I have seen it with my own eyes that a lobbyist walked into the governor's office with study results in one hand and a campaign contribution checkbook in another to influence the governor in the lobbyist's favor. It did not work because I worked for a governor who did not accept contributions from PACs or lobbyists.

There is hardly a bill introduced in the legislature that does not give immediate rise to dueling studies to support the pros and cons that each side voices. These studies are useful propaganda tools but beyond that they shed little light on the truth. The same goes on when a rule change of consequence is put in play by a state or federal agency. If the debate was about the truth or about answering the same questions, the same study would serve and satisfy both sides. But in the legislative and rulemaking processes, the truth is one of the first things to go.

The study you cite above is not just loaded with variables but overflowing with them. There are simply too many factors to consider to arrive at a useful conclusion beyond propaganda.

I am not a lobbyist but if I were, I would begin as many do, which is to immediately confuse and complicate an issue by injecting volumes of complex data into the debate and then navigate my way through the debate behind the scenes as the expert and campaign contributor that lawmakers should listen to.

The dueling study phenomenon is not new. It was not new in the 70's and is not new now. The study you cite may be remembered because it was part of the debate back then but the study itself had little or nothing to do with why the laws got changed or passed.

In our industry today, you can see dueling studies right here. While it seems true that the FMCSA's methods were flawed, NO ONE on the FMCSA's side is saying, "Oh oh! We better go back to the drawing board." Instead, the powers that be are going through the motions to get done exactly what they wanted to do long before any studies were made.

The debate being conducted in the name of safety and its associated studies are a smoke screen. Hours of Service initiatives are about work rules that provide competitive advantage to one group and diminish it for others.

In the legislative process, studies are meaningful to the extent that they provide political cover and have propaganda value. They are meaningless as documents that correspond to the truth or answer questions in an objective and scientific manner.

Shifting the topic a little bit, I will also suggest that in expediting, the concept of efficiency per ton of freight to a gallon of fuel is meaningless. It is simply not something our customers consider when booking loads.

The load Diane and I have on our truck right now as I write this totals 128 lbs. That's it, 128 lbs. I have to haul a lot of loads like that just to get to a ton of freight and will burn a whole lot of fuel doing so. It happens frequently in expediting that a cargo van or small truck is not available to haul something like a 50 lbs. box, or even a 5 lbs. box, so a big rig will be called in to get done what the customer wants done.

Sure, there are many ways for a shipper or carrier to improve the efficiency per ton of freight to a gallon of fuel but none of them meet our customer's needs, which is why 128 lbs. shipments end up on trucks like ours and we burn a couple hundred gallons of fuel to move the item from Point A to Point B.

 

[golfournut]

No, Sir, I did not just beam down here.

Studies like these do not get things done. They get created and misused by people who have political power to get done what they want done. They have no relationship to reality beyond their propaganda value.

I know of which I speak from first hand experience (see my bio). I have seen it with my own eyes that a lobbyist walked into the governor's office with study results in one hand and a campaign contribution checkbook in another to influence the governor in the lobbyist's favor. It did not work because I worked for a governor who did not accept contributions from PACs or lobbyists.

There is hardly a bill introduced in the legislature that does not give immediate rise to dueling studies to support the pros and cons that each side voices. These studies are useful propaganda tools but beyond that they shed little light on the truth. The same goes on when a rule change of consequence is put in play by a state or federal agency. If the debate was about the truth or about answering the same questions, the same study would serve and satisfy both sides. But in the legislative and rulemaking processes, the truth is one of the first things to go.

The study you cite above is not just loaded with variables but overflowing with them. There are simply too many factors to consider to arrive at a useful conclusion beyond propaganda.

I am not a lobbyist but if I were, I would begin as many do, which is to immediately confuse and complicate an issue by injecting volumes of complex data into the debate and then navigate my way through the debate behind the scenes as the expert and campaign contributor that lawmakers should listen to.

The dueling study phenomenon is not new. It was not new in the 70's and is not new now. The study you cite may be remembered because it was part of the debate back then but the study itself had little or nothing to do with why the laws got changed or passed.

In our industry today, you can see dueling studies right here. While it seems true that the FMCSA's methods were flawed, NO ONE on the FMCSA's side is saying, "Oh oh! We better go back to the drawing board." Instead, the powers that be are going through the motions to get done exactly what they wanted to do long before any studies were made.

The debate being conducted in the name of safety and its associated studies are a smoke screen. Hours of Service initiatives are about work rules that provide competitive advantage to one group and diminish it for others.

In the legislative process, studies are meaningful to the extent that they provide political cover and have propaganda value. They are meaningless as documents that correspond to the truth or answer questions in an objective and scientific manner.

Shifting the topic a little bit, I will also suggest that in expediting, the concept of efficiency per ton of freight to a gallon of fuel is meaningless. It is simply not something our customers consider when booking loads.

The load Diane and I have on our truck right now as I write this totals 128 lbs. That's it, 128 lbs. I have to haul a lot of loads like that just to get to a ton of freight and will burn a whole lot of fuel doing so. It happens frequently in expediting that a cargo van or small truck is not available to haul something like a 50 lbs. box, or even a 5 lbs. box, so a big rig will be called in to get done what the customer wants done.

Sure, there are many ways for a shipper or carrier to improve the efficiency per ton of freight to a gallon of fuel but none of them meet our customer's needs, which is why 128 lbs. shipments end up on trucks like ours and we burn a couple hundred gallons of fuel to move the item from Point A to Point B.

Very impressive.

The excerpt that I mentioned above was a very abbreviated version of the study.

When I did the study, it was for no one but my self for a college class. Upon completion I was asked if it could be shared and I agreed.

So with that said, what I did was totally unbiased and was a comparison of efficiencies for the transport of goods. It doesn't matter whether you have 1 pound or 30 k on a particular load. It does not change the overall ratio between the different modes because all the ratios are based on capability.

These types of studies are also useful for planning by various entities. If fact, do you think Walmart distribution process was just buy a plot of dirt, throw up a building and start moving product.

Or the in depth traffic counts that include types of vehicles, passenger count in the vehicles etc... that McDonald's does before building a new restaurant.

Or Whole Foods Grocery might want to know the most efficient way to transport pineapples from Costa Rica. By ship, plane what have you.

There is a bigger world out there outside of your Governors office or legislature that value data for sound decision making when it comes to transporting goods.

The truth is in the studies, no matter what side your on. Not what a politician claims to be the truth. Anyone can add their own interpretations. The more exhaustive studies leave little room for outside interpretations, in your world those don't get a look see because the powers that be can't manipulate them their imagined truths.
But the real world, relies heavily on that type of data.

The difference is this, most companies care about all of the expenses and realize efficiency saves money.
Government hasn't figured that out.

By the way your old boss still owes my company that I sold in 1995 money for work done on his campaign office off of Mopac in Austin Texas.

 

[greg334]

Golf,
Can you explain what you meant by the trucking industry was coming out of regulation?

I thought that didn't start under Carter until 1978, or was this a different thing?

 

[golfournut]

Golf,
Can you explain what you meant by the trucking industry was coming out of regulation?

I thought that didn't start under Carter until 1978, or was this a different thing?

Actually regulation started in 1970 71 with Nixon then Ford then Carter.

In 1974 the push started for deregulation.

In 1976 the Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act was signed into law. This started major series of events for the trucking industry.

It wasn't until the Motor Carrier Act of 1980 was signed into Law by Carter.

Between 76 & 79, there were stop and go type measures being used so as to not show favoritism to the rail industry. But didn't become law until 1980.

The idea was to let the carriers set and publish their rates. It was supposed to save the consumer something like 6 or 7 billion (don't remember the exact number).

Does this answer your question greg334?

 

[greg334]

Yep sure does, thanks.

 

[golfournut]

The governing body was the ICC Interstate Commerce Commission. When the Motor Carrier Act of 1980 was passed for the deregulation of trucking, it started the slow death of the ICC.

In the mid 90s the ICC was abolished.

The remaining regulatory authority that was not part of MCA was transferred to FMCSA or the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Both of which fall under the jurisdiction of USDOT.

 

[golfournut]

As a side note, regulation of the trucking industry actually started in 1935. It grew from there.

 

[ATeam]

By the way your old boss still owes my company that I sold in 1995 money for work done on his campaign office off of Mopac in Austin Texas.

Governor Ventura was not a candidate for any public office in 1995 and he has never run for a public office of any kind outside of Minnesota. How would it come to be that he owes money to your former company or any company for work on a campaign office in Texas?

 

[golfournut]

Governor Ventura was not a candidate for any public office in 1995 and he has never run for a public office of any kind outside of Minnesota. How would it come to be that he owes money to your former company or any company for work on a campaign office in Texas?

The other boss, Ross

 

[ATeam]

The other boss, Ross

While I was an early volunteer in his campaign, Ross Perot was never my boss. I stopped supporting him when he abruptly left the 1992 presidential race.

 

[golfournut]

While I was an early volunteer in his campaign, Ross Perot was never my boss. I stopped supporting him when he abruptly left the 1992 presidential race.

10-4

Stiffed some others in Austin. Not only me. Oh well, written off long ago!

 

[jelliott]

So we should all drive a CSX train?

 

[golfournut]

So we should all drive a CSX train?

Naw, can't get to a Wally World easily! lol