Calculate the Cost of Your Commute

The True Cost of Driving Calculator helps drivers calculate the full impact of driving a car. The two sections of the calculator, Direct Driver’s Expenses and Indirect Costs, show you that you pay only some of the costs of driving directly, and other costs are absorbed by society, such as impacts on road maintenance, pollution, and noise. By helping drivers calculate their True Cost of Driving, Commute Solutions encourages drivers to look at all the impacts of their transportation choices.

If you are interested in learning about the data and calculations used to create this calculator, please go here.

Readers comments about the True Cost of Driving Calculator:

http://21stcenturyurbansolutions.wordpress.com/2009/04/03/the-true-cost-of-driving/:
When I was researching for my last project (see last post), I stumbled across this calculator for the true cost of driving created by Santa Cruz County’s “Commute Solutions” program. This is the best attempt I’ve seen to fully quantify the multitude of costs associated with driving, since it factors in not only the cost of the car, fuel, insurance, maintenance, and fees, but also infrastructure, congestion, pollution, parking, accidents, land value, and other indirect costs.

http://news.fresnobike.org/2009/05/true-cost-of-driving.html: Most people calculate the cost of driving by figuring how much gas they use. But miles-per-gallon is only one of the expenses car owners pay. Besides the cost of the vehicle, there is maintenance, repairs, insurance, parking, tolls, and a litany of woes. What does it all add up to? You could keep detailed records, or you could use a handy online calculator to estimate the cost. Take a look at the http://moneyandvalues.blogspot.com/2008/08/true-costs-of-driving-how-much-could.html: And if you want to take it a step farther and really explore the externalities (costs that are borne by people other than yourself) of your driving, try this calculator called The True Cost of Driving.. Not only does it add a few other factors to your personal driving costs such accounting for the average cost per mile of car accidents (health care and property damage), but it also lays out things like how much the government pays for highway maintenance, repairs, and waste clean-up per mile driven; a variety of pollution impacts per mile driven; and a bundle of other effects your driving has on society. Other Tools that Measure Transportation Impacts

Money is not the only way to measure the impact of your commute. Driving cars also produces greenhouse gases such as Carbon Dioxide (CO2). To calculate your CO2 impact, go to http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/ind_calculator2.html The EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Calculator.

The American Public Transit Association offers this calculator to help you compare the price of using public transportation with the cost of driving: http://www.publictransportation.org/contact/stories/calculator_08.asp

Compare side by side the impacts of various vehicles in terms of gas mileage, greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution and safety at this government website: http://www.fueleconomy.gov/

Contact

Commute Solutions
(831) 429-POOL