there and back again

As it stands now we have 7 people with tickets that probably want to camp at camp54. Me, Bob, Mark, Michael, Bicho, Jimmy and Jen. Have not had any official information as to Jen's travel plans.
I've heard faint rumblings that Jon and Gary might come, but they need to decide very soon to be taken into consideration.
Other years I have gone have been excessively chaotic when planning because we counted hypothetical people into our plans. As my goal for Burning Man continues to be "get bigger and better" each year, I only want to focus on planning for people who are courteous enough to plan ahead.

Of course in the below spreadsheets I take a number of different attendees into consideration for the sake of comparison.

I've heard many suggestions as to how we should get out there. Buying a bus is one option. Bob and I have the truck, and tentively plan on renting a 6' by 12' trailer from Uhaul. We could have Bicho and Michael ride together in one car with Mark, Jen and Jimmy in the other. Or if Jen's travel plans do not include our group Bitcho, Mark, Michael and Jimmy could ride together in one car and put all of our other stuff in another car.
Following are a group of graphs that math out the cost of each option, gas wise. All gas guesstimates are at $3.50 per gallon. The total mileage is assumed to be 3400.
Each option presumes that we add up the total amount of gas cost of the entire trip, all cars included, and divide by the number of people going. This means that the burden of gas does not become uneven, and allows us to divide our goods into many different vehicles without possible hurt feelings over money.

The first spreadsheet assumes we use the truck and some number of cars. Option 1 lists the cost if 7 people go in our caravan. Option 2 lists the cost if only 6 people go in our caravan and we take the truck and only one car.


Obviously if we decide that we need to take 3 cars, like option1 but only 6 people are going in our caravan the cost will be 481.60 for gas per person. Likewise if Jon or Gary decide to go (or both) the total using Option 1 (assuming we take the same number of vehicles) will be $361.65 and $321 respectively.

The next spreadsheets list the cost if we were to (as a group) purchase a school bus. Obviously these numbers would vary according to how much the bus (and licensure, insurance etc) would be. I assume here that the price of the bus is $2000.00 and that is gets 8 mpg. (This total may be a little high some websites I read said they avg. 5mgp). Also, school buses take diesel, the price of which seems to fluctuate more rapidly than regular gas.

For some reason I forgot to total the price of gas for 7 people on the bus. The price would be $498.00.
Using the above information we see that the bus option only makes sense with 9 or more people going in our group. However, I wonder how much stuff we could get into the bus. I've got a short-bus on my mind, I'm not sure how much a full-sized bus might cost. Also, I suspect that you need a special license to drive a full-sized bus.
If we get a short bus we may need to rent a trailer and take the truck as well. This means that the price per person doesn't make sense again until around 11 people are going.

My personal opinion is that the bus is a really cool idea, but probably not doable this year. Bobby and I, having just purchased a new car, cannot buy a bus ourselves. This means somebody else would have to take the reigns on getting info about buses/licensure etc.
Also, as Michael said, I would be afraid to put all of our eggs in one basket. An old bus may not work very well, and may need alot of mechanical upkeep and might just break down on the way there. Our truck is brand new, so barring any severe misfortune will work great there and back again. Also we have at our disposal several very travelable cars.

That being said, it'd be pretty cool to have a burning man bus. If somebody wants to look at it, send me links and whatnot so we can further discuss it on the blog.