Van Pools Blog

By Glenn Croston
Author of 75 Green Businesses and founder of Starting Up Green

Vanpools are far more fuel efficient than single passenger vehicles and a great step forward for many drivers, but this doesn’t eliminate the need to squeeze more miles from every gallon. The wave of unrest sweeping the Middle East has sparked a big jump in the price of oil and renewed awareness of the vulnerability of our oil supply. More and more it looks like the age of cheap oil is over. As the price of oil rises, so does the pressure to do everything we can to use fuel efficiently and save money, even in vanpools. There are many steps you can take though that can make a big difference for your vanpool, and for our planet.

Some predict that by the summer of 2011 we might see gas prices as high as those from 2008 when the price of oil crested at $147, and strained the budgets for homes and businesses. Even before the current wave of Middle East unrest the signs of economic recovery in the US and rapid growth in China and India was driving the price of oil upward, and these trends are likely to continue. For those managing fleets of vehicles like vanpools, the risk of a big increase in the price of fuel is magnified. Even if you cannot stop buying gas today, you can still protect yourself by taking another look at how vehicles are maintained, and how they are driven.

Some changes are behavioral. By driving more conservatively, avoiding jackrabbit starts and sudden stops, mileage can be increased as much as 33 percent. Slowing down is another way to make every gallon last longer. Depending on how fast you normally go, slowing down to less than 60 miles per hour can boost mileage by 7 percent or more. Changing driving behavior can be hard, but it does happen. Last time the price of oil spike in the summer of 2008, people and businesses responded by doing just these things, reducing fuel consumption for the first time in decades.

More aggressive changes in driving behavior can produce even greater savings. Plan routes to avoid traffic or use new GPS and information tools that lay out traffic choke points and suggest alternative routes. UPS plans routes to avoid left hand turns which take longer and consume more gas than right hand turns. Rolling down the windows reduces efficiency at higher speeds, and air conditioning consumes a fair amount of gas as well, at any speed.

Proper maintenance also increases mileage, including easy steps that cost little. Proper tire inflation can boost mileage by about 3 percent and keeping a vehicle well tuned increases mileage by 4 percent. Using the right motor oil can add another 1-2 percent to your performance. Some have proposed filling tires with nitrogen rather than air to reduce leakage, maintain tire pressure, and increase mileage.

Now is the time to take the next step toward a more fuel efficient country. We need to change how we drive to build a stronger country, and a cleaner world. Vanpools are an important part of this. And if vanpools can save more with steps like these, all the better to drive the move toward greener choices that help us all.

Glenn Croston is the author of “75 Green Businesses” and “Starting Green”, helping businesses everywhere to start green and grow greener at www.startingupgreen.com.

(The views expressed in this post are those of the author and not necessarily those of Van-pools.com or VPSI, Inc.)