I would appreciate your thoughts on my daily commute to work. The shortest commute is 19 miles each way, of which there is a 2.5 mile stretch of 30-35 mph with about a dozen traffic lights. On average I get a red light on at least six of those lights. Also, there is considerable traffic in this stretch, making it difficult to coast to a stop and gently speed up from it. The highway/city split is 10 miles/9 miles. I can take a detour which adds 1.5 miles at 40-45 mph, but has very light traffic, and only about six lights of which I rarely ever get a red light. I can coast and gently ramp up, and also afford to go anywhere between 30-45 mph. So overall, what are your thoughts on fuel economy of the two routes? Are more stops better than almost no stops? Also, 3 miles of extra mileage every day for a year is about 750 miles. How does that factor in? Thanks!
All I can say is: (1) this problem needs a better definition of what is to be optimized: fuel? total cost of ownership? time? aggravation and driver sanity? (2) time and fuel are best tested by actually driving and measuring the routes. Both depend on too many variables not included here, and probably cannot be sufficiently described.
To me, the optimal route would be the quickest route. And generally the quickest is also optimal for gas mileage.
