How much time does it cost to stop on a road trip?

[MotionMan]

Here is the not-so-hyothetical situation:

I am driving 400 mile road trip. For the purposes of this exercise, let's assume the entire trip is on a freeway at speed (80 mph).

My question is how much time it actually costs me to slow down, get off the freeway, pull into a gas station, come to a complete stop, then get back on the freeway and accelerate up to 80 mph again.

I am purposely not including any time for getting to the freeway and getting up to speed at the beginning of the trip, or slowing down and getting off the freeway at the end of the trip, or any time spent at the gas station (other than stopping for a moment).

Math is hard.

MotionMan

 

[pete6032]

Insignificant. The main factor in trip variability on a 400 mile journey is how bad the traffic is if you're only stopping once or twice.

 

[nageov3t]

about tree fiddy.

 

[MotionMan]

Insignificant. The main factor in trip variability on a 400 mile journey is how bad the traffic is if you're only stopping once or twice.

I assumed that, over an otherwise 5 hour trip, the difference would be smallish.

In the anti-texting and driving ads, they say you travel a football field's worth of distance while looking at your phone. If I am slowing down to a stop, then having to re-accelerate up to speed, I must be losing a number of football fields each time. If those football fields were to add up to a mile (i.e. 17.6 football fields' worth), that would add 48 seconds to the trip.

I am just wondering what the actual time lost per stop would be.

MotionMan

 

[tfinch2]

Depends on what you're doing at the gas station. If you're just pulling in, coming to a complete stop, then getting back on the freeway, about 1 minute per stop.

Filling up your car? Add 3 minutes. Getting a drink? Add 2 minutes. Going #2?

 

[nageov3t]

I assumed that, over an otherwise 5 hour trip, the difference would be smallish.

In the anti-texting and driving ads, they say you travel a football field's worth of distance while looking at your phone. If I am slowing down to a stop, then having to re-accelerate up to speed, I must be losing a number of football fields each time. If those football fields were to add up to a mile (i.e. 17.6 football fields' worth), that would add 48 seconds to the trip.

I am just wondering what the actual time lost per stop would be.

MotionMan

without actually running diagnostics on your specific car, how can you really track it? I'd assume it's going to depend a lot on how fast you accelerate, your car's MPG, if the stops are adding/removing weight to the vehicle, etc.

 

[lxskllr]

It's kind of an interesting question. The time lost is negligible, but I'm sure there's a handy formula that could easily give you a pretty accurate estimate. I'd be interested in knowing it also. The variables would be distance to the gas pump, speed changes over that distance(You'd have a few sections of smooth slow down/acceleration, but it wouldn't be consistent end-end), then distance from the pump to highway.

 

[SKORPI0]

1. Towards the gas station..
Assume 80mph (highway speed)--->20mph (exit ramp speed to gas station)---> complete stop.. total time. 25-30 seconds?

2. Putting gas only/no restroom break... 3-5 minutes?

3. Leaving the gas station
Accelerate to safe speed of 15-20 mph at exit ramp, then 80 mph once in the highway. maybe another 25-30 seconds?

 

[dank69]

How can you answer this without knowing how far the gas station is from the highway? Time lost will equal the time it takes to get from the point where you first start to decelerate (point A) to the point where you get back up to 80mph (point B) minus the time it would have taken you to travel from A to B at 80mph. The time it takes you to get from point A to B could be anywhere from a few minutes to who knows how long.

 

[BurnItDwn]

I generally account about 30 minutes for a stop if it involves filling gas tank, going to bathroom, then waiting for fiancee to take a long time to buy a beverage at the gas station because she is thirsty and then walking as slow as possible back to the car.

Then I account an additional 15 minutes to stop at the rest stop 2 hours later because she needs bathroom stop because she drank whatever beverage she finally decided upon.

But yea, traffic is always the killer.

750 mile drive Baltimore, MD to Wauconda, IL ... should be like 11 hours or so... but a few inches of snow, and some jerk crashes in some highway tunnel, and the interstates are gridlocked for 5 hours, causing that to become a 16 hour drive ... no fun!

 

[Fern]

Take exit, pull into station, fill car, pee, get back on highway is about 15 minutes for me IIRC. (Yeah, I'm a nerd I time it.) Can be longer (maybe 5 minutes) if there's a lot of traffic and stop lights at the exit, or the cars are lined up at the pumps.

My wife gets the beverage and uses the restroom while I fill up the car. I then pee and leave for the on ramp.

I try to get off at exits that have the gas stations near the off ramp/on ramp. I hate it when I pull off the interstate and the gas station isn't in sight.

Fern

 

[alzan]

If it's one of those combo gas station/bar setups it could add hours...

 

[Fern]

If it's one of those combo gas station/bar setups it could add hours...

Or even days if you get pulled over after stopping there.

Fern

 

[Carson Dyle]

Trying to compute time lost to deceleration/acceleration is a classic example of overthinking a simple problem. Compared to the time taken for all the other activities during a stop, they're incidental.

 

[phucheneh]

Getting off the interstate, pulling into a gas station that is assumably right off the exit ramp, filling up, and then getting back on the interstate, is maybe ten minutes. As mentioned, factoring in things like decelerating/accelerating is inconsequential in comparison to the time it takes to actually pump 10-20 gallons of gas. Especially when you say a 400 mile trip, which is 5-6 hours at typical interstate speeds (~65-75mph).

The disheartening part comes when you realize that the slow assholes that you had to weave around, and probably cursed at, well over an hour ago, are now in front of you again.

 

[heymrdj]

It's significant. As a person that drove from 5mi north of the FL border to northern Indiana (within 35mi of the Michigan border) routinely non-stop in one day (13-16 hours), the stops for gas and bathroom are very significant over the whole time. Gas+bathroom+food (3 meals a day) can easily be 20 minutes a peace, more minor stops, like just bathroom are pretty much 10-15 minutes. If you're one of those people that needs to stop every hour (significant others!) to pee, then a long trip can easily be lengthened an hour or more in a day.

 

[zerocool84]

For gas, even though it's usually quick can actually add like 10-20min depending on drink/bathroom stops. Food is obviously going to add a lot more time on top of that.

 

[vi edit]

We doing some trial homework?

For the exact scenario you describe, no breaks, no refueling, no slim jim purchases. Just simply de-accelerating, coming to a stop at a gas station, then turning around and merging back on? I'd say 3-6 minutes depending on personal driving habits, traffic, and distance/to from exit ramp. If you need to make any left turns onto busy roads without a light/good light timing then obviously it's pushing the upper limits of that.

 

[Schmide]

400 mi!!! Crazy NASA Diaper Wearing Chic?

 

[highland145]

Holy crap, a MotionMan sighting....I gotta pee.

 

[Printer Bandit]

How do you factor in running over a homeless person?

 

[Red Squirrel]

How do you factor in running over a homeless person?

Depends how much damage it does to the car and if said damage degrades the performance. :biggrin:

 

[lupi]

if you're not getting out of your vehicle, about 2-3 minutes.

 

[dbcooper1]

If you really want to make a math problem out of this, you could start with some specs generally available for most vehicles- braking distance from 60mph to 0 and acceleration from 0 to 60. The old "train A is going east at 60mph and train B is going.."

 

[Markbnj]

I guess you're on a schedule, because otherwise... who cares? It's half the point of the trip.

Since you are on a schedule I have to answer "no clue."