A number of months ago, I wrote a blog post that analyzed the fuel efficiency claims of CSX, which was expressed in ton-miles per gallon. While doing some other efficiency work, I stumbled upon a web site that nicely summarized the efficiencies of a number of transportation modes. Here is a table that summarizes that data by transportation mode.
| Transportation Mode | Ton-Miles per Gallon of fuel |
| Semi-Trailer Trucks (half loaded) | 90.5 |
| Semi-Trailer Trucks (fully loaded) | 186.6 |
| Grain Trains (Iowa to West Coast) | 437.0 |
| Grain Trains (Iowa to New Orleans) | 640.1 |
| Barge (Iowa to New Orleans and return with 35% load) | 544.5 |
| Barge (Upper Mississippi Southbound) | 953.0 |
| Barge (Upper Mississippi Northbound with 37% load) | 243.0 |
| Small Ocean-Going Ship (>30K tons Deadweight) | 574.84 |
| Large Ocean-Going Ship (>100K tons Deadweight) | 1043.4 |
Here is what I take from this data:
- Full loads are much more efficient than partial loads.
I have read that one of the ways that Walmart achieves such remarkable distribution efficiency is by making sure that every load is full. This makes sense.
- Going downstream is easier than upstream.
This also makes a lot of sense.
- If you are going to ship freight on the ocean, use a large ship.
The efficiency of large ships explains the large increase in the number of enormous container vessels over the years.
Thank you for all of your post!
I’ll be using this in class next week (9th graders) to reflect on decision-making with mathematics. A great, relevant, and quick way to introduce the topic.
I love it when teachers use the posts. If there is a topic that you think would be interesting to cover here, drop me a note. Generally, I just grab stuff that I am working on.
Mathscinotes