Transport is the use of vehicles to move people and goods. Moving objects have kinetic energy. This energy has to come from a source. We call energy sources for transport fuels. The most commonly used fuel, petroleum, is a fossil fuel refined from crude oil to make diesel, petrol or aviation fuel. The picture below shows how much it costs us to travel in the UK.
Average cost per passenger mile by mode: 2002/03 |
Rail |
Bus |
Car |
Text equivalent:
Rail17p per mile
|
Text equivalent:
Bus22p per mile
|
Text equivalent:
Car28p per mile*
|
Average cost per passenger mile by mode: 2002/03 |
Rail | Bus | Car |
17p | 22p | 28p* |
*includes cost of purchase, road tax etc (Source: UK Department of Transport, 2006)
Why do we persist in using cars when they are the most expensive mode of travel available to us? Can you think of three reasons?
The costs to our pockets are clear but what about the impacts of these differing fuels on the environment. All of the above involve the use of fossil fuels to widely varying extents. Burning these fuels produces carbon dioxide that contributes to the Greenhouse Effect and climate change.
What about other countries? Do they use their cars more or less than us?
The table below shows the number of kilometres travelled (in billions) by people for different modes of transport in different countries.
Passenger transport mode 2003 (in billion passenger kilometres)
|
| Cars | Buses and coaches
| Rail |
Great Britain | 677.0 | 47.0 | 40.9 |
Czech Republic | 68.6 | 9.4 | 6.5 |
Japan | 757.0 | 86.0 | 239.0 |
USA | 7,008.0 | 226.0 | 22.0 |
(Source: UK Department of Transport, 2006) |
To find the answer to the above question, make a pie chart for each row of the table. You can do this quite quickly if you copy and paste the table into a spreadsheet program. Can you also find which country uses rail the most? And which country uses buses the most?
Greenhouse gases from fuels
What's your opinion?
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