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By Wendy Leavitt
Director, editorial and market development, Fleet Owner Magazine
The next revolution in trucking is already described in a single paragraph in a
middle chapter of a dependably dry government document. See for yourself. In
Chapter Four of the recommendations from the National Energy Policy Development
Group to President George Bush it''s there in black and white:
“The NEPD Group recommends that the President direct the EPA and DOT to develop
ways to reduce demand for petroleum transportation fuels by working with the
trucking industry to establish a program to reduce emissions and fuel
consumption from long-haul trucks at truck stops by implementing alternatives to
idling, such as electrification and auxiliary power units at truck stops along
interstate highways. EPA and DOT will develop partnership agreements with
trucking fleets, truck stops and manufacturers of idle-reducing technologies
(e.g. portable auxiliary packs, electrification) to install and use low-idling
technologies.”
For fleets, there is much to celebrate in that prescriptive paragraph.
Consider phrases like “working with the trucking industry,” or “partnership
agreements with truck fleets,” and give thanks.
“The writing is on the wall,” observes Rick Tempchin of the Edison Electric
Institute. “It is like the perfect storm. All the critical elements are
converging. Fuel prices are high; there is a pressing need to reduce emissions;
and driver fatigue is an emerging concern. The trucking industry has the
opportunity and the economic incentives to get ahead of the regulatory curve.
Now is the time to work together to create a climate to encourage everyone to
adopt something — some anti-idling alternative. There is plenty of room in the
market for all the existing solutions and more. And that will be the case for a
long time to come.
“The Bush Administration strongly favors technology solutions, and we have them
in abundance here and now,” Tempchin adds. “This is not a case of governmental
‘technology-forcing.’ We''re talking about some basic, smart applications of
existing technologies to reduce truck engine idling.”
“It is definitely time to get started,” agrees Rex Greer, president of the
Albuquerque-based auxiliary power system company, Pony Pack, and a pioneer in
the anti-idling effort. “For years, there has been lots of talk about how truck
idling wastes fuel and contributes to air pollution, but very little action. We
may eventually have even better technologies available than we do now, but it
just doesn''t make sense to keep waiting and keep idling when good solutions
exist right now that we aren''t using.”
GOING NOWHERE, HAULING NOTHING
“Doesn''t make sense” is putting it mildly. There are various estimates for the
annual cost of idling a truck, but all of them are enough to make a fleet
financial officer weak-kneed at the thought of all that lost profit. Argonne
National Laboratory, for example, estimates that U.S. longhaul Class 7 and 8
trucks typically idle their engines for up to 1,800 hours per truck per year.
Other estimates put the figure as high as 2,600 hours per year.
If that weren''t enough, The Technology & Maintenance Council (TMC) notes that,
in addition to fuel costs, a truck idling for one hour also suffers wear equal
to about seven miles on the road. That means if a truck idles eight hours per
day for 325 days of the year, for instance, it runs the maintenance equivalent
of 18,000 miles and burns about 2,340 gallons of diesel (at 1.3 gallons per
hour) going absolutely nowhere, hauling absolutely nothing. You can use
Argonne''s formula on page S9 to calculate your own fleet''s annual cost of
idling.
There are, of course, other serious penalties for idling besides fuel and
maintenance costs. Argonne estimates that a single truck idling 1,890 hours per
year emits about 20 tons of carbon dioxide, 420 lb. of carbon monoxide and 250
lb. of nitrous oxides.
Weigh it as you will, research from most well-respected health organizations
clearly documents that emissions from diesel engines can have a number of health
effects, from an elevated risk of respiratory and cardiovascular illness to
cancer. And for those who can still manage to dismiss the health concerns, there
are the big picture issues of smog, ozone depletion and acid rain to confront.
Idling is definitely a dirty business. It is also a noisy one. “We are having an
increasing problem finding appropriate new sites for truck stops because
communities just don''t want to put up with the noise from trucks idling all
night, not to mention the pollution and the traffic,” says a truck stop
executive.
The only good news about idling is that fleets can do so much for their bottom
line and for the environment by giving up idling for extended periods. Whether
you are interested in retrofitting existing trucks or spec''ing new vehicles
with idle-reducing equipment, there have never been more good options from which
to choose.
AC POWER
“We''d like to be able to find truck stops where we could shut down, plug in our
trucks and power everything from HV/AC systems to microwave ovens, televisions
and computers,” says Dan Flanagan, director of maintenance for M.S. Carriers.
“Our idle time is around 40 percent and our 5,000 trucks run about 144 million
total miles per year. If we could knock our idling time down by even 10 to 15
percent, we''re still talking about huge savings.”
According to Flannigan, M.S. Carriers plans to start purchasing Freightliner
Century Class trucks equipped with inverter/chargers and shore power connections
and then run TV, telephone and electrical lines at their own terminals. “Just by
eliminating idling at our own nine facilities, we can save a substantial amount
of money.” he explains.
Thanks to a pilot program by the New York State Thruway Authority, fleets like
M.S. Carriers will also be able to find access to AC power for trucks away from
home base.
The New York State Thruway is launching a pilot program called Truck Stop
Electrification (TSE), sharing financing of the $500,000 project with two other
partnering state agencies — the New York State Energy Research and Development
Authority and Niagara-Mohawk Power Co. The project will provide electrical power
hookups for trucks at selected Thruway Travel Plazas, beginning this month with
two facilities: the Chittenango (milepost 266 Westbound) and the Dewitt
(milepost 280 Eastbound) Travel Plazas, located along I-90 near the I-81
interchange in Syracuse, NY. If the pilot is successful, plans are to expand it
to the Thruway''s 25 other Travel Plazas.
Electricity, the AC variety, will be provided to about 34 individual
tractor-trailer parking spaces at the two demonstration plazas. In a separate
project, the Thruway is independently installing another 14 units.
All sites will offer IdleAire''s new multi-service consoles, which are designed
to fit into a side window of the truck and provide access to duct-delivered heat
and air conditioning, 110-volt current, telephone, cable television and the
Internet. “Our system is actually fairly simple,” says Tom Badgett, executive vp
of IdleAire Technologies Corp., based in Knoxville, TN. “An external,
thermostatically controlled, high-capacity heat and air-conditioning unit is
installed at each parking space on an overhead truss.
“Operators using the IdleAire service carry an insert that slips into a side
window. No additional equipment is required. The insert, which will cost about
$10, allows all truck windows to accept the console,” he explains. “An LCD
screen and keypad — also on the console — handle driver I.D., odometer readings
and other account information, while providing thermostat control, messaging and
more.”
According to Badgett, IdleAire is focusing on making the service a “win-win”
opportunity for truck owners, drivers and even truck stops, and is currently in
active negotiations with owners of 128,000 commercial parking spaces. “We do the
construction and we bring in our own power,” he says. “All the truck stop has to
contribute is the space, and in exchange for that, we share revenues from the
service with them.”
The cost to use the new AC power spaces will be about $1.40 per hour, according
to John Platt, executive director of the Thruway Authority.
“Our estimate is that an idling diesel engine typically burns about one gallon
of fuel per hour. So at $1.65 per gallon for diesel, it is more economical to
use the AC power hookup based on the cost of fuel alone,” he notes. “On an
average business day, we have about 150,000 trucks that travel some portion of
the Thruway. If fully utilized, these two sites alone could reduce diesel fuel
usage by as much as 470,000 gallons per year. This program also delivers an
added safety benefit by encouraging drivers to take a break, reducing the
likelihood of drowsy driving accidents.”
Drivers of vehicles equipped with shore power electrical connections and
inverter/chargers will be able to plug into the IdleAire units for AC power only
if they choose, as well as being able to take advantage of other AC power
sources available. Companies like California-based Phillips Industries (with
inverter/charger supplier Dimensions Unlimited) and Xantrex Technology Inc.,
Burnaby, B.C., Canada, supply inverter/chargers and shore power electrical
systems to the aftermarket and to truck manufacturers.
Brian Lawrence, market segment manager for Xantrex Technology, says every major
truck manufacturer is or soon will be offering at least one model
factory-equipped with shore power capability. “Some truck manufacturers are
offering shore power and inverter/chargers as an option now, and we expect that
all the OEMs will be onboard with AC power very soon,” he says. “In the near
future, a fleet or owner-operator will be able to spec a new truck with a
complete AC infrastructure package, and drivers will visit truck stops that
offer power connections.”
AC-powered heaters and air conditioners would be included in such a package, and
systems are already available. Indiana-based Cab Comfort, a division of The
Dometic Corp., for instance, has been providing 115-volt heating and cooling
systems to the trucking industry for more than five years. According to the
company, their units run off any 115-volt power source, from generators to shore
power.
“At Volvo we''ve been offering the model 770 with AC power capability as an
option since 1998, and I know several other OEMs offer AC packages as well,”
adds Keith Brandis, vp-product planning for Volvo Trucks North America. “There
are not a lot of reasons left to idle truck engines anymore.”
DIRECT-FIRED HEATERS
AC power is only one of several alternatives to vehicle engine idling.
Direct-fired heaters, for example, can be used to heat both the cab/sleeper and
the engine or just one or the other. According to Argonne, they are many times
more efficient than engine idling, typically running 20-plus hours on a single
gallon of diesel. Direct-fired heaters have been available for decades from
companies like Espar Heater Systems, based in Ontario, Canada, and
Michigan-based Webasto Thermosystems, which is also working on a Thermo Cooler
concept to provide both heating and cooling.
“Auxiliary heaters are on 90 percent of the sleeper trucks in Europe, and they
are now catching on in North America,” Franz Neumeyer, vp-general manager for
Webasto, says. “Electronic trip recorders and logs have helped fleets and
owner-operators see the savings they can get with auxiliary heaters. In the
past, when we explained the benefits our systems provided to potential
customers, they believed it or they didn''t. Now customers can see the results
for themselves. They have hard data, evidence from their own vehicles. As a
result, sales in North America have more than doubled.
“Engine idle shutdown systems have also been helpful,” he adds, “because they
have forced drivers to learn to use the auxiliary heater system, and as soon as
they use it, they love it and tell other drivers about it.”
“Educating drivers and just building general awareness are important elements,”
agrees John Dennehy, vp-marketing for Espar. “With auxiliary heaters, for
instance, drivers have to learn to shut off the engine and use the heater. And
since it ties into the truck''s batteries, they have to learn to manage their
battery power.”
AUXILIARY POWER UNITS AND GENERATORS
Auxiliary power units (APUs) are small, truck-mounted systems, typically
including an internal combustion engine, compressor and alternator. Today, APUs
are generally diesel-powered, although other sources of power, such as fuel
cells, could be used for APUs in the future. The units are integrated into the
truck''s operating systems to provide temperature control, DC power, battery
charging and engine fuel warming for cold weather starting. The addition of an
inverter/charger allows APUs to work as a source of AC power, as well.
One of the chief benefits of APUs is their portability. Because the units are
truck-mounted, they can be used virtually anywhere, including at loading docks.
They may even be valuable as survival units in case of a truck breakdown in
extreme weather conditions.
“APUs do everything the truck engine does except power the driveshaft,” explains
Rex Greer of Pony Pack. “Our idea was to utilize everything on the truck that we
possibly could when it was parked. We wanted to add as little additional
equipment as possible.”
The Pony Pack APU, for example, includes a 105-amp alternator, a 2-cyl. Kubota
engine and a Sanden compressor. “In a recent test done by the EPA, an older Pony
Pack unit, which has been in operation since 1996, burned about 0.22 gallons of
diesel per hour,” says Greer. “We tell customers to expect to use between a pint
and a quart of diesel an hour, depending upon the load they are putting on the
system.”
Generators, such as the units from Onan or TruckGen Inc., are really not the
same as APUs, although the terms are often used interchangeably. Generators
actually produce 110- to 220-volt electricity to run AC-powered devices, from
air conditioners to microwaves.
“We began getting calls from truckers who wanted to purchase our marine
generator sets,” says Gino Kennedy, president of TruckGen Inc., a spin-off
business from Next Generation Power Engineering created to address the needs of
the trucking industry. “Every other mobile industry you can think of puts
generators onboard their equipment,” he continues. “It just made sense for
trucking to do the same.”
Drivers using generators typically give them good marks. “My Series 60 Detroit
Diesel engine has 398,000 miles on it, with a lifetime idle average of 14
percent,” notes owner-operator Grant E. Sheldon. “My Onan generator set has
6,144 hours on it. It charges the batteries and runs the heater/AC system. The
generator uses one-third gallon of diesel per hour versus the one gallon an hour
for my 500-hp. truck engine. I''ve saved $5,068 on fuel alone, and Detroit
Diesel calculates that I''ll add 100,000 miles to the life of my truck engine.”
ENGINES OFF, NOW
The technology is available today to dramatically reduce engine idling. So why,
with all the benefits to be gained and money to be saved, isn''t every fleet in
the country racing to implement one of these solutions as quickly as possible?
That is a question the EPA, DOE, DOT and others would like to address.
“We want to conduct more extensive testing on idling trucks and we want to
conduct a national survey to learn more about idling behaviors,” says Paul
Bubbosh of the EPA. “Along with our Federal and industry partners, we also plan
to conduct a series of workshops on idling beginning with a workshop in
Flagstaff, AZ, on August 18 and followed by a meeting in Dallas on September
5-6. Workshops are also tentatively planned for El Paso, TX; Gary, IN, and
Fresno, CA.
“We want to learn from the trucking industry and truck stop operators about the
obstacles they face in adopting an alternative to truck engine idling,” Bubbosh
says. “We want to address these concerns and find ways to get idle control
technologies voluntarily implemented.”
Do you hear that “voluntary” word, again? These workshops are not just idle
talk, and it is definitely the time to volunteer. You can take that to the bank.
Click Here for More Information
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Fleet Owner magazine
Issue August 2001
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