Green Commute

This blog is intended for those who drive to office in their cars. I never liked to travel in bus to office – I found it more convenient to drive to office in my car (and earlier bike) and valued my independence in commuting on my own time. However, it was a year ago I started to ‘experiment’ traveling in Bus, mainly triggered by the awful traffic situation. What struck me was that it makes more sense to use the office to commute to and from office – there are just too many advantages. In fact, I now find it is just plain foolish to drive to office.

So on the occasion of Earth day, I thought of sharing my thoughts on make a strong case for those who have not yet ‘converted’ – hopefully the light bulb will click!

Note: While I fully support car-pooling compared to no pooling at all, I still believe that a better alternate is to switch to a mass transit system like the office bus as car-pooling does not give quantum benefits in many aspects which a mass transit system will.


So here’s a list of reasons as to why you should stop using the car and switch

· Save the environment: I think this is THE most important reason. I have tried to calculate the amount of CO2 emitted if you drive to car vs. using a mass transit system like office bus – see the table below. Switch to office Bus, do your bit to reduce global warming and make this world better for your children to live in.

· Pocket some money - you can save a lot by switching to Bus – on an average, 50% of your monthly bill on fuel for driving to office

· Reduce stress – with the increased traffic, lack of discipline and stagnant infrastructure, driving today has become quite stressful – coming in a bus helps you relax and de-stress

· Better usage of time – You can utilize the travel time in bus in activities such as socializing, reading listening to radio mirchi or just catching up on sleep...

· National Security: India is dependent on imports for 76% of our fuel consumption of which 85% is from areas like Middle East, Nigeria and Angola. With all major countries in the world scrambling to meet increased fuel demand, we are headed for an energy-crisis era. We will have to compete with giants like US & China amongst others with very little leverage

· Stay fit – coming in a bus makes you walk a bit more and burn some calories

Table comparing CO₂ emissions for various modes of travel:

Mode	CO2 emissions (kg/year)
Self driven	2,155
Car Pooling	1,723
Mass Transit System	321

Note: I live in Pune, India. Some of the assumptions I have used:

· fuel efficiency of 12kmpl for petrol and 16kmpl for diesel cars

· average driving of 15km/day for 1 side commute to office

· average load factor of 1.7 for car pooling

· average bus size 50 seats with 80% loading

· fuel efficiency of 5kmpl for buses