Fuel Economy Through Ride-Sharing

Fuel economy through rideshare 

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If you ask almost anyone, they know that ride-sharing, car- or van-pooling and using public transportation will definitely make a difference to your fuel economy.  It will also save you money.  So, why don’t more people ride-share or car-pool?

Maybe it’s because they don’t know how much they will save.  Now I don’t live in the Northeast, but I recently starting following a company on Twitter and thought I’d go to their site and check it out.  It’s The Rideshare Company.  So I went to www.rideshare.com to calculate how much we would save if we had my husband ride-share or van-pool to work (I work from home, so no car-pool needed). 

I filled out their form and it showed that the estimated cost per mile for gas, maintenance and tires ran us about $0.2437.  Then it showed the estimated cost per day for vehicle depreciation was $11.63.  His overall estimated drive-alone commuting costs were $448.98 per month and $5387.76 per year.  Ouch!  Then they gave me the estimated cost for full time ride-share costs in a full size van – $1584.00, breaking down to about $132.00 per month.  Well, that’s a heck of a lot better than the $448.98 per month in drive-alone costs!

They also give you some environmental impact results they’ve had so far, including contributing to: 402 million less miles traveled, 11 million fewer vehicle trips, 201 thousand fewer tons of emissions released into the air (could be reduced even further with a good fuel additive) and 19 million gallons of gasoline conserved.  And that’s just from one ride-share company!

So, if every car emits its own weight in CO2 per year, then cutting just 25 miles a week from your regular driving could apparently save 1500 lbs of CO2.  Plus just think of the fuel economy, the savings and the lowered stress levels you would have by ride-sharing even just once or twice a week.  Honey…your ride-share is here!

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