What is the most efficient form of transportation for people?

Question

Exclude human powered vehicles like bicycles.

Would it be a fully loaded bus, or maybe a fully loaded plane? Perhaps a long passenger train? Maybe a Toyota Prius with 4 passengers?

Basically just looking for the least amount of energy to transport a person a certain distance.

Answer 1

Probably a bus because they hold a lot of people and they are starting to make really fuel efficient and "green" buses that don't emit a lot of emissions

Answer 2

There are many things that need to be considered when comparing the efficiencies of very different vehicles. Do you mean efficiency in terms of 'total energy put in compared to usable energy out' or are you wanting to know which emits the least amount of environmentally damaging gases such  as carbon dioxide etc?

I assume you mean in terms of carbon emissions. So my guess would be that it would have to e out of an electric train and buses that run on either turbo diesel or LPG engines.

The most important factor in this comparison would be where the train is sourcing its power from. If it comes from fully renewable resources such as solar, wind, hydro etc. then it would win hands down. Also if it was using nuclear it would be better in terms of carbon emissions, but of course there are other side effects to nuclear. Lastly, from fossil fuel power plants the comparison becomes very complex.

Fossil fuel power plants have total efficiencies ranging anywhere between 35% for older ones through to nearly 60% for modern combined gas turbine power plants.  When you combine this with transmission losses over power lines, losses in the trains electric motor  converting the electricity to mechanical power, drive shaft losses and rolling and aerodynamic resistance. Your total energy recovery is pretty low.

So as you can see it can be very difficult to compare the two, try out the following website if you interested: http://www.lafn.org/~dave/trans/energy/r...

This compares are train to a regular automoblie

Answer 3

I would have to say, a "Mag-Lev"  (Magnetically Levitated) train or other highly efficient electrically powered passenger train.

Answer 4

The most efficient is a bicycle.  

But, since your question excluded human-powered devices, an electric train would be my guess for the most efficient.