As a household with two parents and two kids saving on transportation can be challenging as we spend a lot of time as happy, part time “taxi drivers” shuffling our kids to school or different activities. I wanted to better wrap my head around transportation costs and thought would the 2017 National Household Travel Survey might serve as a treasure trove of information. While every person has a different situation, I thought information is power.
What are the main reasons why people need transportation?
By better understanding why people travel, it will help to identify opportunities for saving money. If you break down the purpose for travelling by miles driven the following are the main reasons why people travel…
- Travelling Home: 35.6% of vehicle miles
- Travelling to Work: 20.8% of vehicle miles
- Shopping/Errands: 14.5% of vehicle miles
- Social/Recreational: 11.1% of vehicle miles
- Transport Someone Else: 6.5% of vehicle miles
- Meals: 5.3%
- School/Daycare/Religious Activity: 2.9%
- Medical/Dental Services: 1.6%
- Something Else: 1.7%
Source: 2017 National Household Travel Survey (https://nhts.ornl.gov/vehicle-miles)
Are there ways to reduce the number of trips?
- Telecommuting: As one of the biggest categories of travel working from home is one way to reduce annual wear and tear on your car. One of the insights of the American Household Travel survey is that the number of people working from home increased from 4.3% in 2009 to 5.0% in 2016. The types of jobs that afford this opportunity are typically sales jobs or managerial/professional jobs. Being able to stagger work partially from home and partially form work might be a way to avoid the rush hour commute. My wife, fortunately, is able to telecommute 2 of 5 days a week, while for the last 5 years I was able to work a telecommuting job.
- Online Shopping: Online shopping is another good way to avoid wear and tear on ones vehicle. Our family uses Amazon Prime both for low cost entertainment options, as well as free delivery on packages. Options for online delivery of groceries are becoming more prevalent. For instance, Walmart delivers groceries for $98 annually. Assuming one goes grocery store weekly that is less that $2 per trip. I was once able to upload 12 weeks of menu plans into one grocers website, and with a couple clicks of a button better automate my weekly grocery shopping trip. Imagine completing your online shopping a the touch of a button. Unfortunately, that is not an option where I live now. The more convenient we can make grocery shopping the less likely we might be to eat out as well, which can be fairly expensive. Online shopping is also a better societal alternative to online shopping. According to a study in Smart Cities, September 2019 researchers found that “as more households adopt e-commerce and e-commerce is used for a greater percentage of retail shopping occasions, substantial savings in vehicle miles travelled and fuel consumption result.” (Source: https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1564151)
- Uber and Hop Skip Drive: Services like Uber and Hop Skip Drive can be used strategically. We have some family friends that have their kid use Hop Skip Drive to have their son meet up with our son on the weekend and don’t have to rush back just to transport their kid back and forth to our house. While I haven’t tried it myself, my understanding is, Hop Skip Drive provides some added security for the person transporting your relative.
What is the average distance we travel for each trip?
In general more than half of all trips are 5 miles or less. While one option reduce trip distance might be to consider the location of work and/or school when buying/renting a house. Other options might be biking and or using electric vehicles to reduce the cost per mile travelled.
| Trip Distance | Cumulative % of Trips |
| Less than 1 mile | 21% |
| 1-2 miles | 35% |
| 2-3 miles | 46% |
| 3-4 miles | 54% |
| 4-5 miles | 60% |
| 6+ miles | 100% |
Source: https://nhts.ornl.gov/vehicle-trips
Are there ways to optimize the how we travel?
According to the Children’s Travel to School Brief of the 2017 National Household Travel Survey distance seems to impact whether kids take walk/bike, catch a bus, or are driven to school.
Source: https://nhts.ornl.gov/assets/FHWA_NHTS_%20Brief_Traveltoschool_032519.pdf
The easier we can make walking or biking the more likely people will want to travel long distances. So electric bikes, electric scooters, etc. might be game changes to encourage use cheaper small vehicle rather than a big gas guzzling SUV.
There are also some interesting innovations in plug in electric vehicles. Since 85% of trips are 15 miles or less you can see how vehicles like the Subaru Crosstrek PHEV make sense. This vehicle has a small battery with 17 miles of electric capacity before it kicks over to gas. However, given most car trips are under this capacity it is going to be using its electric capacity most of the time, but then can switch to gas for long road trips.
According to one technologist. Ramez Naam, he has data that supports how electric vehicles should continue to get more efficient as renewable energy costs and battery technology continue to improve. He posits that by combining cheap energy, self driving technology, and mobile phones that future of transportation will become more of a low-cost shared utility much different than it is today.
Please check out the link to his video on renewable technology and the future of transportation…
After looking at the data what thoughts do you have on how we can make travel more efficient?