US Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) declined 3.7% in May 2008 as compared to May 2007.
Secretary Peters said that Americans drove 9.6 billion fewer vehicle-miles traveled (VMT) in May 2008 than in May 2007, according to the Federal Highway Administration data. This is the largest drop in VMT for any May, which typically reflects increased traffic due to Memorial Day vacations and the beginning of summer, and is the third-largest monthly drop in the 66 years such data have been recorded. Three of the largest single-month declines - each topping 9 billion miles - have occurred since December.
VMT on all public roads for May 2008 fell 3.7 percent as compared with May 2007 travel, the Secretary added, marking a decline of 29.8 billion miles traveled in the first five months of 2008 than the same period a year earlier. This continues a seven-month trend that amounts to 40.5 billion fewer miles traveled between November 2007 and May 2008 than the same period a year before, she said.
The drop was steepest in the North Central region at -4.5% and least in the West at -2.3%. That decline takes Americans back almost to May 2003 for total VMT. GIven that the US population has grown about 5% in that time the vehicle miles traveled per person have probably dropped 5% from the amount Americans drove in 2003. That probably puts us back to around the year 2000 in miles driven per person.
As people find ways to restructure their lives to reduce the need for vehicle travel expect to see more reductions in VMT in coming months. A rise in gasoline prices takes time for its many effects to fully work their way through the economy.
US fuel consumption decline frees up oil for use in the parts of the world where oil consumption is still rapidly rising. This New York Times article provides an interesting tour of the countries of the world with big fuel subsidies and rapidly rising oil demand.
From Mexico to India to China, governments fearful of inflation and street protests are heavily subsidizing energy prices, particularly for diesel fuel. But the subsidies — estimated at $40 billion this year in China alone — are also removing much of the incentive to conserve fuel.
The oil company BP, known for thorough statistical analysis of energy markets, estimates that countries with subsidies accounted for 96 percent of the world’s increase in oil use last year — growth that has helped drive prices to record levels.
The big question: when will the subsidizing governments find they can not afford to subsidize any longer? When will the full weight of oil market prices reach Chinese, Indonesians, Indians, Saudis, Venezuelans, and others who pay below market prices for gasoline, diesel fuel, kerosene, and other oil products?
China accounts for almost half of rising oil demand.
China alone accounts for about 40 percent of the world's recent increase in demand for oil, burning through twice as much now as it did a decade ago. Fifteen years ago, there were almost no private cars in the country. By the end of last year, the number had reached 15.2 million.
SUV sales are booming in China.
But in China, the number of SUVs sold rose 43 percent in May compared with the previous year, and full-size sedans were up 15 percent.
I see the subsidies in these other countries as doing us a favor. They are forcing us to begin moving away from oil before world oil production starts declining. We need that kick in the pants to get us going to make the adjustments and investments we need to do to start our move beyond the oil era.
By Randall Parker at 2008 July 29 12:00 AM Energy Transportation | TrackBackYup.
It is a never-ending source of delight to me to watch free-market systems easily adapt to changes in prices that other systems require years of meetings to create a plan that will create a new top-level governmental department that will regulate and manage the production and pricing of the item in question.
Are you still highly concerned about peak oil, or has the American response to the constricted supply eased your fears?
Gasoline cosumpstion was only down 2.3% for May. Fuel efficiency continues to decline.
Some possible reasons why.
jb,
Yes, the market is certainly responding. But a substantial chunk of that response basically is lowering of living standards. The innovations will take a lot longer.
I'm still highly concerned. How much trouble we are in depends on how long we stay on the production plateau. The longer we stay on it the better prepared we will be when we come off it.
Aaron,
As for gasoline consumption versus VMT: Poor people are cutting back on their driving more than wealthy people. Does that mean that SUV miles driven are falling slower than compact car miles driven? Could be. I ask engineers and managers I work with if they are cutting back. They say no. But they have incomes above $100k. The people with incomes below $30k must cut back. It is not optional for them. They can't afford to drive as much as they did before.
We should see a bigger fuel consumption reduction among the affluent as they buy new cars that are more fuel efficient. The 2009 model year will show a big increase in average fuel economy of the average purchased new car.
I see those with higher incomes cutting back in general too, and one of the easiest ways to cut expenses is to cut down on unnecessary travel.
I think your exactly right that we will see a bigger fuel consumption reduction in the near future as drivers coming off leases or those buying new will look for more fuel efficient vehicles.
Aaron,
I'm questioning part of the fuel efficiency logic. How much fuel efficiency decline comes from higher air quality standards both in vehicle exhaust systems and gasoline additives and how much comes from people buying inefficient vehicles?
"a substantial chunk of that response basically is lowering of living standards"
Randall, I'd quibble a bit with that. Vacationing closer to home, or moving one's commuting to the old Corolla that the teenager was previously using, are certainly small reductions in living standards, but the reduction is pretty marginal. Carpooling is less convenient, but it still gets you to work. The reductions in quality of life are much smaller than the reductions in consumption.
"I'm still highly concerned. How much trouble we are in depends on how long we stay on the production plateau. The longer we stay on it the better prepared we will be when we come off it."
Oddly, I'd invert that. I think we'd handle an emergency much better than this slow squeeze, this nibbling to death. Our biggest problem isn't sufficient btu's or liquid fuel (conservation, at least in the US, can handle almost any reduction), it's the transfer of wealth that continues, day in and day out.
The difference between the most and least fuel efficient of typical vehicles couldn't account for the difference in gasoline consumption and miles driven. There must be an increase in less efficient driving as well as a decrease in efficient driving. SUVs aren't that much worse than normal cars and don't make up that large a percentage of the fleet.
Commercial trucks etc. only make up ~7.5% of 2005 miles driven.
I've also plotted MPG (13 month moving average) using DOT vehicle miles driven and EIAs finished motor gasoline supplied. Miles Per Gallon.
And for kicks, I plotted regular unleaded gasoline price against MPG.
Xmas, I have no idea. I don't know of major changes in air quality standards in recent years, but we are using more reformulated fuels.
aaron,
Plot fuel efficiency against ethanol blending. You can find good data on amount of ethanol used per year and even per month probably. Ethanol is lowering MPG. Not sure how big a role it plays. But it is contributing to lower MPG.
I've read that Maserati sales are booming. People who spend $120k on a low MPG car aren't sweating $4 gasoline.
I also just heard a news program quote a boat repossessor in South Florida with hundreds of boats that two thirds of the boats he repossesses get sold abroad. Our living standards are getting sent abroad with our cash we spent on oil.
Nick G,
Well, I read about trips foregone altogether, the many restaurant chain bankruptcies, clothing store bankruptcies, people giving up various activities. Seems obvious people are experiencing lowered living standards. You are looking at it probably from the vantage point of the upper middle class. Someone who makes $35k a year sees $100 in different terms than you do.
Aside: South Park ought to do an episode centered on Butters about the Bennigan's bankruptcy. The little guy sure loves Bennigan's. Some restaurants owned by franchisees will survive. Will the one in South Park survive? Maybe the owner of City Wok could battle Mongolians for control of it.
I expect to see a lot of Venezuelans carting their kids around to soccer practice in SUVs while more and more Americans crowd onto buses. All those low-efficiency vehicles coming off lease that nobody wants over here have to go somewhere.
No matter how many more Mazeratis etc they make, they won't make up a significant portion of vehicle miles travelled.
"I read about trips foregone altogether"
It's frustrating that people have such a hard time moving to more efficient vehicles, or carpooling. I see many anecdotes about people with modest income and with very high fuel expenses, and it's clear that they would be much better off with a Corolla - but they're not ready to make that change yet. People could still drive mostly the way they want to, with more efficient vehices.
"many restaurant chain bankruptcies, clothing store bankruptcies"
This is probably mostly unrelated to oil (restaurant and clothing stores are always going bankrupt, and we are dealing with housing & credit bubbles which are only partly related to the current account deficit), and the rest is the CA deficit, which I agree is a big problem.
"looking at it probably from the vantage point of the upper middle class"
Yes, the very sharply unequal income distribution in the US is a big problem. VMT is only down about 3-4%, but perhaps it's coming from a small group. The anecdotes one hears sound widely distributed, but anecdotes can be deceiving...
Nick,
Did I somehow miss reporting this New York Times article on how much the rural poor are spending on gasoline:
A survey by Mr. Rozell’s firm late last month found that the gasoline crisis is taking the highest toll, as a percentage of income, on people in rural areas of the South, New Mexico, Montana, Wyoming and North and South Dakota.With the exception of rural Maine, the Northeast appears least affected by gasoline prices because people there make more money and drive shorter distances, or they take a bus or train to work.
But across Mississippi and the rural South, little public transit is available and people have no choice but to drive to work. Since jobs are scarce, commutes are frequently 20 miles or more. Many of the vehicles on the roads here are old rundown trucks, some getting 10 or fewer miles to the gallon.
The survey showed that of the 13 counties where people spent 13 percent or more of their family income on gasoline, 5 were located in Mississippi, 4 were in Alabama, 3 were in Kentucky and 1 was in West Virginia. While people here in Holmes County spent an average of 15.6 percent of their income on gasoline, people in Nassau County, N.Y., spent barely more than 2 percent, according to the survey.
The percentage spent on gasoline is of course a subset of the percentage spent on energy.
Josephine Cage already drives one of those old small cars that you advocate:
Workers at the plant are trying to find ways to cope. Josephine Cage, who fillets fish, said her 30-mile commute from Tchula to Isola in her 1998 Ford Escort four days a week is costing her $200 a month, or nearly 20 percent of her pay.
So she's making $1000 per month after taxes. Hard to afford to buy a different used car with that money. Moving seems like her best option. But what would be her housing costs in Isola? Or can she find someone to car pool with?
Nick G,
People with modest incomes cannot afford to realize their losses in capital stock that has suddenly declined in value. They may be ready as all get out to make the change. That doesn't make them financially able to. They often find themselves stuck making do with what they have.
All those low-efficiency vehicles coming off lease that nobody wants over here have to go somewhere.Recycle them into heavy bar stock and put them into a Strategic Rail Reserve. This will reduce demand abroad, as fewer vehicles remain on the roads and the fleet has fewer of the low-mileage ones.
Well, let's keep in mind what we're debating. I suggested that the lifestyle changes people are making in response to high fuel costs aren't a significant reduction in overall quality of life.
I would agree that high fuel costs are a significant financial burden, especially on the working, rural poor, and that some of those will have a hard time paying the capital costs of some of the most elegant solutions. OTOH, it's worth noting that this is a relatively small % of the population - most people make more, and commute less. The NYT article talks about 13 counties with fuel over 13% of income: there are probably 3,000 counties in the US, and the population of these 13 are perhaps .3% of the US. Should we ignore their plight? No, but neither are they representative of the country as a whole.
More importantly, I don't think ditching one's pickup for an Escort or carpooling, while possibly embarrassing, falls in the category of serious harm.
Re Josephine Cage: If she's driving 240 miles per week in an Escort, she should be spending about $130 per month, not $200 (30 miles each way x 2 ways x 4 dayw/wk = 240 miles, 240/31MPG highway= 8 gallons, $4 gas x 8 gallons = $128) - keep in mind this is rural highway driving, and these are the new, more realistic MPG estimates, which she ought to be able to beat. Has she tried to find a carpool? Probably not.
Some % of rural commuters might not be able to find a carpool, but the large majority should be able to, if they really try (and if a lot of other people are trying as well - there's a critical mass phenomenon going on here). Look at carpooling websites: not very many people are there yet, though they're growing.
Bob: an old Corolla is affordable for almost anyone. I drove a Corolla until it was 23 years old, and it's still on the road: a (formerly) homeless guy is now driving it to deliver takeout food, and tells me that his fellow drivers are impressed, and moving to buy Corollas. Most small cars are very reliable, even when old, and maintenance costs are reasonable. Solutions will be affordable until old Corollas and Civics rise dramatically in price - it hasn't happened yet.
Nick G,
You are overlooking the fact that a lot of the modest income folks have car loans to pay off on older cars they bought used. They have to pay that monthly payment even if they sell the large car for a fraction of the outstanding debt or even if they leave the car in the driveway.
That can very well mean a Corolla is a pipe dream.
Bob,
No question, some modest income folks are going to be badly hurt. They're not going to have the capital, credit or resourcefulness to handle this gracefully. OTOH, their losses are sunk, and the question is, can they get their hands on an old Corolla/Civic in some way? Well, a 15 year old small car is only going to cost $2k, and the cost (depreciation & maintenance) will be much less than the fuel savings. Perhaps a payday loan, or a dealer who finances and repossesses at the drop of a hat (and then keep up the payments!). Heck, I sold my Corolla for $5 to the homeless guy (I could only get $50 from a wrecker), he put $300 into it, and he's doing great. It would have cost me $900 to fix the brakes, but he managed to do it for $300. A lot of modest income, rural folks do their own maintenance very cheaply (older cars are easier to DYI).
Finally, what about carpooling? Very few of the Josephine Cage's of the world have tried it yet, and it would work for the great majority of them. She, for instance, does factory shift work: her hours are fixed, and there are a fair number of coworkers, some of whom have to live in her direction.
I did not object to your remarks about carpooling. Many people of modest income already carpool either formally or informally by catching rides with others whenever possible. Doing so can be a huge time waster and reducer of living standards, though.
"carpooling...Doing so can be a huge time waster and reducer of living standards, though."
I strongly agree for non-commuting transportation: rail, carpooling, etc., nothing comes close to a personal vehicle. For commuting, though? Carpooling can be quite nice. Carpool with just one other person on the same shift, and you've instantly cut costs by 50%, only have 1 person to coordinate with, and only have to be behind the wheel 50% of the time. All in all...perhaps a bit inconvenient, but not terrible.
Nick G,
I question your assumed ease for setting up car pooling arrangements. I suspect for rural people especially car pooling is hard to arrange. People do not work the same shifts. They work in different directions. Some do not go places because they farm. It is only the rural people who do shift work who happen to start in the same general area and go to the same place at the same time who could hope to car pool.
Look at it this way: This lady above is spending 20% of her meager income on gasoline. In theory she has a huge incentive to car pool. So why doesn't she? Maybe some of the workers live close to the plant. Others commute in various other directions. Maybe it is a small facility too.
I also wonder why managers in these factories and processing plants do not try to look thru home addresses and suggest car pooling groupings given that gasoline costs have become obstacles to their access to cheap labor. The managers have the information. Maybe this is happening some and just hasn't gotten reported?
So how big is the average employer of rural folks?
"your assumed ease for setting up car pooling arrangements"
I wouldn't assume any one individual would find it easy, but 85% would, if there was a critical mass of people doing it. It's easy: ask your boss, ask your coworkers, try one of many carpooling websites. What are the chances that Josephine has actually tried?
Look at the NTY stories: one guy was driving a Jeep Cherokee(!!), and just kept on doing it until it was repossessed! Why didn't he sell it (he certainly could have gotten more than the zero he got from the repo guy), or give it back months before and get a small car? There's no sign he tried - he was simply hoping things would go back to the status quo ante, as it has many times in the past.
People tend to bunch together: they work the day shift, and work in large companies (most companies are small, but most people work for big companies).
"This lady above is spending 20% of her meager income on gasoline"
Actually, it's probably less than 10%. First, she should be spending $125/month to commute, not $200 (see my calc's above), she said "nearly" 20%, and she probably meant takehome.
"why doesn't she?"
I think she hasn't thought about it yet. The whole thing is too new, and she's still hoping it will go away, like the guy discussed above.
"Maybe it is a small facility too"
Well, I looked it up: it's a 600 worker plant (Consolidated Catfish Companies, Llc - Country Select Catfish). There are probably 500 people who start at the exact same times as she does, and certainly a number of co-workers who live within 5 miles of her.
"I also wonder why managers...do not try to look thru home addresses and suggest car pooling groupings "
Same thing as Josephine: it's too new. Probably people haven't started asking for it yet. Plus they have lots of other things to do, and very likely potential unskilled workers are plentiful.
There are lots of simple, low cost solutions - people have to think outside the box, and accept a just little inconvenience and possibly embarrassment, if it feels like a step down. I hope the social perception of such adjustments will change. It helps that one can simply say that one's motivations are to save the planet...
Nick G,
Your assumptions are faulty. If a 600 employee plant runs 3 shifts, there are at most 200 people starting at the same time. Many factories have moved to staggered shifts, which would reduce the number of people starting at the same time even further.
Josephine lives 30 miles from the plant. Assuming she is at the outer radius of where workers live, the workers are spread over 2800 square miles. That works out to 1 employee for every 14 square miles starting at the same time. However, the distribution of employees won't be uniform. Probably 80% or more of the employees will be clustered in some town (or towns) closer to the plant.
If we were talking about people living in Blackstock and carpooling to work at the GM plant in Oshawa, carpooling would be an option. In fact, when I worked a summer at GM, lots of people carpooled. These were affluent auto workers back when gas was cheap and those who could carpool generally did. Your assumption that convenient carpooling is an option for 85% just doesn't make any sense.
I currently live in a rural area that is much more like the places mentioned in the article. There is a carpool lot down at the corner, and people do use it. For example, I expect a handful of people carpool to the french-fry factory in Kensington. A handful more probably carpool to the aerospace industries at the old air base. Altogether they probably represent no more than 1% or 2% of the people in the area.
In fact, some of the people using the carpool lot down at the corner probably drive 10 or 15 miles from Tignish or West Cape to get to the lot and then carpool to Kensington 40 or 50 miles away.
New Mexico, Wyoming, Montana and the Dakotas have a notable absence of large factories for people to carpool to.
P.S. Your analysis of the guy with the Cherokee is likewise flawed. If he owed more on the Cherokee than it was worth, he could not sell it and buy another vehicle. Selling it would still leave him owing money.
Thus his options were:
1. Sell it and certainly end up with a debt and no vehicle.
2. Drive it and try to derive enough value from doing so to maybe avoid that outcome.
As it turns out, the outcome was inevitable despite his efforts.
Bob,
"assumption that convenient carpooling is an option for 85% just doesn't make any sense"
Well, let's keep an eye on the big picture - I'm talking about the country as a whole, where 80% of people live and work in much, much denser concentrations. Even so, I'm happy to look at Josephine's worst case - I'd contend that a majority of rural workers could carpool, if there was mass demand for it, to give it critical mass.
"If a 600 employee plant runs 3 shifts, there are at most 200 people starting at the same time"
Most plants don't run 3 shifts - that's fairly unusual. They might run two, which would give a pool of 300.
" Many factories have moved to staggered shifts"
hmmm. I'm not familiar with that in manufacturing/food processing. I would assume most people would start at or near the same time - assembly and sequential food processing requires most people to be there simultaneously. OTOH, if gas gets to the point where some people have to choose between carpooling and unemployment, they can carpool an hour early and wait for their shift to start - don't forget, at least 1 person in the car will be right on time.
"the distribution of employees won't be uniform"
Yes, and Josephine lives in a cluster of people (aka, a town). further, she doesn't have to carpool with someone in a symmetrical arrangement: she could just drive to a meeting point with someone else, or vice versa (cell phones make this kind of coordination much easier). She doesn't need someone only 1 mile away: she could easily go 3 miles, and 15 if she's going in the direction of the plant. In fact, I would expect her useful "catchment" area would be an ellipse about 15 miles long and 8 miles wide, centered about 5 miles in the direction of the plant from Josephine, and there would be another similar ellipse flipped in the other direction for someone who drove to her. There are likely to be at least 10 coworkers in one of those areas, making the unlikely worst-case assumption that people are evenly distributed.
Most importantly, she doesn't have to carpool with someone at her plant. With carpooling websites, she has access to anyone going her direction, and that's a much larger pool. With things like slug-lines (which I think is the kind of thing you mentioned (" carpool lot"), you don't even need to plan ahead.
The kind of carpooling you saw at the GM plant sounds very informal - people happen to connect with coworkers or neighbors. Already, the FHWA reports that a couple of years ago, when fuel was cheap, about 10% of commuters carpooled. With more organized systems (either work or internet based) many more people could connect.
You have to think outside the box: most people live in dense areas, and every morning thousands of drivers pass by on routes that go near them, and eventually drive past a point from which passengers could get to work (or be dropped of at). Carpooling doesn't have to be cumbersome, or involve 5 people - it can be just 2 people, in a myriad of ways. One way or another, if you connect them up, an enormous amount could be done. Heck, in a national oil-shortage emergency it might make sense to just make all highway lanes HOV, and then you'd see what could be done.
"If he owed more on the Cherokee than it was worth"
Well, first, let me say that I didn't mean to sound judgemental. It was not at all unreasonable for him to hope that high prices would go away, as they have many times in the past - the mass media have provided very bad info up until recently. That said, we know it was not realistic to expect that, and that similar situations should be handled very differently in the future.
The majority of truck owners are not "upside-down" even now in this era of sudden depreciation - heck, many of the rural drivers we're talking about have kept their old trucks, on which the loans were paid off long ago. Even if they are, if fuel is too expensive, it's time to dump the truck - every day with it is just further in the hole. An old small car can be bought for $2K+, and there are plenty of ways to borrow in that situation: pay day loans, credit cards, relatives, and car dealers that hope that you'll default on the loan, get repo'd, and lose your equity. Of course, there'll be a few people who are just too poor and overstressed to put it all together, but that's a small %. And, there's likely to be a point where small used cars get more expensive, and then the tradeoffs are harder - but we're not there yet, though, and there are a lot of under-utilized small used cars out there, so I'm not sure that we will.
Again, there are lots of simple, low cost solutions for most people, they just have to think outside the box, and accept just a little inconvenience and possibly embarrassment.
Nick,
The payback times on buying newer and more fuel efficient cars are on the long side. That is a pretty handy calculator btw. Edmunds plugs in the current market values of used cars. Pretty cool.
Aside: Did you know that Ford is coming out with an HEV Fusion? Edmunds knows. But they do not have a price for it.
Also, as for poor people buying small old cars: I've done a lot of searching at AutoTrader.com and small old cars seem in very low supply. I am amazed at what has happened to the prices for older Ford Focuses. Going back to the 1990s models the smaller cars are scarce.
As for organizing car pools: Companies are going to have to do this. But they must not feel enough pain yet from worker shortages or they'd already be making much bigger pushes.
"I'd contend that a majority of rural workers could carpool, if there was mass demand for it, to give it critical mass."
Um, that's circular reasoning. If there were more demand for carpooling more people would carpool. The thing about rural areas is it is generally impossible to get enough mass for anything. People are simply spread too thin on the ground.
"they can carpool an hour early and wait for their shift to start - don't forget, at least 1 person in the car will be right on time."
And he will have to wait an hour at the end of his shift for everyone else to finish. Everyone in the car waits an hour total every day, and most people find it inconvenient to add an unproductive hour to their work day.
"The kind of carpooling you saw at the GM plant sounds very informal"
Some of it was informal and some of it was very formal. Some people carpooled from as far away as Kingston. The driver of the van who drove them didn't even work at the plant. His full time business was shuttling people back and forth from work at GM. Even though the round trip would add 4 or 5 hours a day to each employee's work day, the GM workers could all sleep in the van because none of them had to drive.
"she doesn't have to carpool with someone at her plant."
Such an arrangement would be very inconvenient and would sometimes leave a person waiting hours for a ride. What happens when a plant shuts down mid-shift but the people in the car working at another employer are still working? What happens when one of the people in the car is told to "work late or else"? Does everyone else wait? Does that person get stuck away from home?
"With more organized systems (either work or internet based) many more people could connect."
Yes, and that should clue you into the fact that if the opportunity to carpool were available in rural areas people in those areas would already carpool. After all, fuel already consumed a much larger share of their disposable income even before the increases in energy prices. I know: I live in a rural area.
"You have to think outside the box: most people live in dense areas"
The people living in dense areas are generally not the ones having trouble carpooling and switching vehicles. They also have greater access to mass transit etc.
"I would assume most people would start at or near the same time - assembly and sequential food processing requires most people to be there simultaneously."
A 24-7 plant can keep the line fully populated and switch out different people at different times. A plant with regular down-time can populate the line advancing from one end to the other. It will take some time before the work at the front of the line reaches the guy at the end of the line so he doesn't have to be there right away.
The GM Autoplex in Oshawa has had staggered shifts for decades, and that's as assembly as assembly gets. :)
Randall,
I looked at the Edmund's calculator. It's very handy, but it has several flaws. 1st, it's oriented towards trade-ins, so it gives you the dealer trade-in price for your used vehicle, and the dealer price for your purchase. IOW, the worst of all worlds price-wise. You'd be much better off doing a private sale at both ends. 2nd, the promo I saw for it in another publication framed the calculation of the payoff for trading a used vehicle in for a new vehicle, something that biases the comparison - perhaps that's not Edmunds fault. 3rd, it appears to use the combined city/highway MPG, which will tend to downplay the value of a high MPG vehicle for the long commutes we're discussing here.
I'm curious about the hybrid fusion. Is there a timeframe?
What exactly has happened to the pricing for older Focuses?
"organizing car pools: Companies are going to have to do this"
No, this can also come from websites, like goloco.com - that may actually be more important, though companies certainly would be useful.
"they must not feel enough pain yet from worker shortages "
I agree, though I have seen some discussion of telecommuting for employee recruitment and retention.
Bob,
OK, so we're agreed that the roughly 80% of the US population that lives in denser areas don't have a problem carpooling?
We're agreed that carpooling is already used by about 10% of commuting VMT, which makes it more popular than telecommuting, though it gets much less publicity? I suspect that carpooling suffers from it's cheapness and easiness: it's like orphan drugs and food supplements (like Vitamin D), which are cheaper and more effective than prescription drugs, but don't get the hype because no one can profit from them.
"that's circular reasoning. If there were more demand for carpooling more people would carpool"
That's not circular reasoning, it's just simple logistics - it is a bit of a chicken and egg/efficiency of scale problem. Fortunately, the barriers to entry to carpooling are very low: get enough people asking the plant manager for carpooling assistance, or enough people posting ride requests on a website, and voila, it happens.
"most people find it inconvenient to add an unproductive hour to their work day."
Sure, that's pretty inconvenient. OTOH, lots and lots of people do that (and more) on multiple bus transfers to get to work - if you have to do it to keep your job, then you do.
"The driver of the van who drove them didn't even work at the plant. His full time business was shuttling "
That's great. I take it he was a GM employee? Nice program.
"the round trip would add 4 or 5 hours a day to each employee's work day, the GM workers could all sleep in the van because none of them had to drive."
Well, that seems like a strong argument in favor of carpooling, and a counter-argument to the "1 hour" problem discussed above.
"Such an arrangement would be very inconvenient and would sometimes leave a person waiting hours for a ride. "
Good questions: it would take creativity. Please note that carpooling doesn't require 5 people, it can be just 2, which would reduce the likelihood of inconvenience. How you would handle it would depend on the rate of occurrence of such problems, but I'm sure that creative thinking could amelioriate them. Have you looked at slug-lines? goloco.com? These are just scratching the surface.
"if the opportunity to carpool were available in rural areas people in those areas would already carpool."
Both high fuel prices, and telecommunications/internet possibilities are relatively new. Look at the guy with the Cherokee: he was content to drive it, when fuel prices were low. Part of the problem is the lack of promotion I discussed above: carpooling gets little love. Look at the NYT article: there's no mention of carpooling, no statement that people tried it but couldn't make it work. I don't think Josephine has asked anyone about it, or gone to any websites.
There's no question that a personal car is preferable to carpooling - the question is, what will people do when they really can't afford the status quo?
"A 24-7 plant can keep the line fully populated "
That's interesting. I would note that this works much better with 24-7, and I don't think the majority of plants operate that way. The great majority of workers overall are on the day shift.
"That's great. I take it he was a GM employee? Nice program."
Nope. He was an entrepreneurial van owner. LOL
"if you have to do it to keep your job, then you do."
Exactly. People will do it when they have to to keep their jobs.
"Well, that seems like a strong argument in favor of carpooling"
It is also a strong argument in favor of the idea that those who can easily carpool probably already do.
"It is also a strong argument in favor of the idea that those who can easily carpool probably already do."
Hmmm. Maybe - I guess we can guess all day long about where the transition point is for people (and what "easy" means), though I would again note that high fuel prices are really very new; net & cell telecom tech are very new (have you looked at slug-lines and goloco.com?); carpooling gets very little promotion; and people always take a while to change to new things. Heck - there are clearly a lot of people in big cities who could easily carpool but who don't - they just prefer solo driving.
Perhaps we can agree that it's a viable option for most people to prevent fuel-related job loss (i.e., people will still be able to get to work) due to rising fuel prices.