Taxi Exploration
Ivan Fithian ('18)
For my first explore math project, I decided to study the economic and environmental impacts of a taxi in a city. I chose a Ford Crown Victoria as a standard taxi because these used to be very common taxis in New York City. These vehicles have a tank capacity of about 19 gallons and get a fuel mileage of 17 miles per gallon in the city. I checked the current gas prices and they are about $2.47 a gallon. For the 19 gallons required to fill the car tank it would cost $46.93. Assuming the taxi has 20 fare paying customers and it costs $2.50 per trip with an additional cost of 50 cents per ⅕ mile, the total money earned would be $857.50. Subtracting out the fuel cost of $46.93, there is a total profit of $810.57 dollars. Unfortunately this is not where the cost ends and besides other fees and payments taxi drivers must pay, there is a large environmental impact. In order to make all of this money, 19 gallons of gasoline were combusted. When 19 gallons of octane combust, around 342 pounds of carbon dioxide are produced and emitted into the atmosphere. For every tank of gas used, there are 342 pounds of toxic and harmful waste. To better visualize this, at room temperature and at sea level, this amount of gas would be able to fill the trailer of an 18 wheeler. Thats a lot of carbon dioxide! (See paper for calculations). I checked the E.P.A. and they say about 372 pounds of carbon dioxide would be emitted from 19 gallons of gas. Because we had slightly different information available, getting an answer as close to what the E.P.A. says makes me feel pretty confident in my answer.
From this exploration, I learned how much a taxi emits when driving around customers. There definitely needs to be a better and more efficient way to travel. Either cars have to get more efficient (thankfully they are) or people should take larger vehicles such as buses. A bus can carry more people and it is more fuel efficient per passenger (not to mention much cheaper). I was really interested in learning about the fuel burn and using chemistry knowledge and math to figure out a reaction that is occurring so much in NYC. Everywhere you look there is always a taxi in NYC and I wanted to know how much they pollute. The environment is in danger and some awareness needs to be brought to the fact of how much waste is made from a single taxi.
One of the challenges in this exploration was finding out all of the information I needed. A lot of the information was online, but I also had to do some assuming. For instance I don’t know how many fare paying passenger a taxi makes on a full tank(I assumed 20). I also assumed that the taxi is always full (which it is not) and always has passengers. Again I assumed that the gasoline would completely combust (it does not) and this would make the car less efficient. Lastly I inferred octane as the only reactant in gasoline (which it is not) but I felt this was okay because in several chemistry textbooks they refer to octane as gasoline. Because of these extra reasons, the actual profit is much lower and the emissions and environmental impacts of a taxi are worse than I calculated. All this begs the question of if it is really worth it to take a cab.
From this exploration, I learned how much a taxi emits when driving around customers. There definitely needs to be a better and more efficient way to travel. Either cars have to get more efficient (thankfully they are) or people should take larger vehicles such as buses. A bus can carry more people and it is more fuel efficient per passenger (not to mention much cheaper). I was really interested in learning about the fuel burn and using chemistry knowledge and math to figure out a reaction that is occurring so much in NYC. Everywhere you look there is always a taxi in NYC and I wanted to know how much they pollute. The environment is in danger and some awareness needs to be brought to the fact of how much waste is made from a single taxi.
One of the challenges in this exploration was finding out all of the information I needed. A lot of the information was online, but I also had to do some assuming. For instance I don’t know how many fare paying passenger a taxi makes on a full tank(I assumed 20). I also assumed that the taxi is always full (which it is not) and always has passengers. Again I assumed that the gasoline would completely combust (it does not) and this would make the car less efficient. Lastly I inferred octane as the only reactant in gasoline (which it is not) but I felt this was okay because in several chemistry textbooks they refer to octane as gasoline. Because of these extra reasons, the actual profit is much lower and the emissions and environmental impacts of a taxi are worse than I calculated. All this begs the question of if it is really worth it to take a cab.
