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The idle-reduction movement is becoming a "carrot & stick" proposition. If you can grab hold of the public funding "carrot," you may avoid the "stick" of an illegal idling fine.
Idle-reduction technology is far from new; various forms of idle-control devices, cab heaters and auxiliary power units (APUs) have been around for years. But as long as diesel fuel was cheap and idling engines was an acceptable practice for long-haul drivers sleeping in truck stops and school buses waiting for the school bell to ring, those devices had never found a very large market.
All that is changing in 2006. Trucking companies, school bus fleets and heavy vehicle operators of every shape and size are suddenly surrounded by persuasive reasons to shut off their engines. It's not just that more than 30 states, cities and municipalities now have anti-idling laws on the books, and enforcement is on the rise. Reducing or eliminating idling has the potential to save fleets on fuel and maintenance costs, extend life-cycles and enhance resale values of trucks.
Whether they are compelled to curb idling by law or by a desire to save fuel, money, and the environment, transportation companies are in a scramble for the perfect idle-reduction solution.
But is a perfect solution possible? And if it is, would fleets be able to justify the cost? Even the experts are not sure.
Promising Technology
"The truck stop electrification deployment is obviously big, because that's where you're going to see the greatest savings over time, on a per-truck basis. But, that may not work in all situations; you need mobile solutions as well," says Suzanne Rudzinski, director of transportation and regional programs for the EPA's SmartWay program. In her position with SmartWay, a voluntary program in which trucking companies pledge to meet fuel-efficiency goals, Rudzinski she sees first-hand how different technologies meet different needs for different fleets. And while she considers truck stop electrification (TSE) to be one of the most promising technologies, she has seen the charter SmartWay partner trucking companies opt overwhelmingly for simple direct-fired heaters to meet their fuel-saving targets.
In an early projection of what SmartWay partners expected to invest in between 2004 and 2007, the 42 initial carriers surveyed said they would install 15,000 direct-fired heaters. "One of the reasons is because it's the cheapest," Ruszinski says. "But it's not the full solution, either. It doesn't do anything to keep you cool, so they usually have to pair it with something else."
