Cheaper in Fuel? In traffic or driving?

Question

What is consumes less fuel? Keeping time and automobile modal the same. Continuous driving during a period or being stuck in traffic?

Answer 1

driving

Answer 2

in traffic travel uses more fuel, due to stop and go movement. Therefore open road travel is less expensive due to better gas mileage. Unless of course the open road driver drives very fast, using more fuel.

Answer 3

In terms of fuel consumed, a car idling will use less than a car running at highway speeds.  If it's stop and go traffic, it would greatly depend on how hard you accelerate.  Flooring the accelerator is very wasteful, but just letting the car idle forward isn't so bad.  A tachometer at 800 rpm indicates the engine is consuming less gasoline than a tchometer at 3000 rpm.

In terms of miles per gallon consumed, highway speeds are far more efficient due to the gearing of the transmission.

If we're talking about, say a commute home, and picking between the route that is less congested but perhaps lower speed limit or more congested with a higher speed limit, I'd go for the less congested.  This way, all fuel is being used to prepel the car, rather than burned up in stop and go traffic.

Answer 4

This is not an answerable question. Driving 60 miles per hour for ten minutes may use more fuel than sitting in traffic at ten miles per hour for ten minutes, or it might not. Speed, time, and distance are all required in order to answer your question. Not just time. Those who answered other than this are wrong.