Alligator

I'm trying to minimize the use of my car this year, in an effort to get rid of it entirely. But in order to know how much I'm using it now, I thought I'd track it. I have a simple spreadsheet set up, but there has to be something better.

My bike rides are captured in Garmin Connect, and my car's odometer captures the mileage. I could use a GPS to capture bus rides.

Is anyone doing something better, preferably with minimal human interaction? Is there a better way to know how much progress is being made, other than just how long my car sits in my garage between uses?

Walter S

That seems pretty good to me. Sure, there's all kinds of measurements you could make including calories burned and dollars saved etc. That and the analysis may be meaningful to you. I prefer to make that time available for riding.

wphamilton

Track by how much gasoline you put in it, or more precisely how much you spend on buying gas. It gives just a bit more incentive to ride, in my experience.

Mobile 155

I use Garmin Express to track from my bike to Garmin. That transfers to Ridewithgps and Mapmyride. I have a Vivofit that tracks my walking and like you my odometer tells me how far I have driven. Last year I had 7500 miles by bike and 5600 by car. I don't use public transportation. I walked close to 400 miles this year and only rode 5500 miles and drove 3800 miles. A hospital stay slowed me down this year. I get tires for one of my bikes about every 2500 miles at 100.00 a pop. I get gas for my car about once a month or month and a half at about 27.00 a tank or between 90.00 and 120.00 every three months. The car has other expenses however.

Alligator

Interesting. This is exactly the type of data I'd like to have at the end of the year, mainly because I'm making progress but not completely car free. I'd like to see how far I have to go. I just wish there was a more automated way to track this since I don't want to waste time gathering this information.

CliffordK

Park your car and cancel the insurance. It becomes easy to track the mileage.

I don't use public transportation locally. Although, I might consider using it for longer trips out of town.

I'm not sure how much information I'd glean out of public transportation miles. Number of trips, or $ spent might be a better measurement.

Roody

I would probably just write it down on a piece of paper, You would only have to do this for a week or tow to get a representative sample of your travel patterns.

79pmooney

I haven't formally, but I will make a go of it now.

Bike (I have tracked this fairly well and have good confidence this is in to with two or tree thousand miles) - lifetime: 195,000 miles.
Car: 172,000 miles
Public transportation (excluding air and train, both used only for travel): pure guess, 15,000 miles

So, total: 382,000 miles, 51% bike, 45% car, 4% public transportation.

Now, in recent years, I have been driving more. Crashes hurt more and the effects last longer. I am no longer willing to ride when I would have in the past. And I am getting soft. I own a Prius I bought new. A real pleasure to drive. But I will roll past 200,000 miles this years, God willing. And a little before that, the mileage of 8 times around the equator.

Ben

Mobile 155

Like I said Garmin collects the data for all your rides. It will give you miles traveled, feet climbed, time spent on the bike or walking or running and Average speed. Then just use the odometer on your car and compare. If you use a smart phone all you have to do is hit start and stop and the app does the rest. In my case the Garmin feeds by Bluetooth to the smart phone.

Jim from Boston

Has anyone tracked their bike vs. car vs. public transit usage?

I haven’t either, but to estimate for 2015: car about 30%, Bike about 50%,and Commuter Rail about 20%. Boston has one of the best mass transit systems in the US, and I have convenient access at home and work, so my estimates are skewed in comparison with other places.

I have previously posted to this thread, ”Bike commuting can make transit unbearable” my schematic estimates of the pro’s and con’s of these three modalities.

I-Like-To-Bike

Don't let the Henny Pennys on the A&S list know about your wicked ways. It will send their keyboards into hyper-cluck-clucking mode.

Jim from Boston

Originally I was going to add eating and drinking to driving a car (only), but I can do that on a bike. I suppose I could add a bluetooth with Siri to do the dialing on a bike to make phone calls, and even add a reading stand as used on stationary bikes to read while cycle commuting.

In fact if limber enough I guess I could do some alternative stretching exercises while riding too.

I-Like-To-Bike

That is what audio books with mp3 players/smartphones are for; makes "reading" books easy while in any mode of travel. I've "read" hundreds of books while cycling over the past decade and dozens more while driving to visit friends and family out of town.

Jim from Boston

(Obviously) I was being facetious when I suggested a reading stand on my bike when riding…the rushing wind would rattle the pages too much to focus on them.

Actually though, even when driving, I have found my mind wanders when listening to audiobooks. I especially prefer non-fiction, and I would be rewinding (casettes at that time) to review what I had missed. Nonetheless I am an avid listener, and indeed crave audio informational input (as opposed to music), of my own choosing. My job is of such a nature that I can listen to whatever, except NSFW (Not Suitable for Work). And without audio stimulation to keep me focused, the ”silence is deafening.”

So while, if the

the P&R crowd would go ballistic if they knew I listen almost constantly to sociopolitical Talk Radio.

Anyways, sorry for the interrruption, and now back to our regularly scheduled thread, already in progress.