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Tranportation Industry Goes Green to Save Some Green

Sometimes environmental progress can be more than just compliance, it can be strategic and smart for the bottom line too. As more Americans become concerned with rising fuel costs and the pains the country takes to keep the supply steady, many times it's up to private enterprise to take the first step toward a lighter bottom line.

America's transportation companies and truck manufacturers are leading the way by example in the national race for efficiency. Truck manufacturers are implementing profound design changes in the truck power plants and their driving habits in order to meet and exceed new emission recommendations from the EPA.

Fully implemented, these guidelines "can reduce fuel consumption by 86 billion gallons and CO2 emissions by 900 million tons for all medium- and heavy-duty trucks over the next 10 years," according to ATA President and CEO Bill Graves.

While these guidelines certainly change the way transportation manufacturers construct and market their products, it also changes the way trucking schools teach safety and strategy for the open road.

According to the ATA, the six key recommendations to reduce fuel consumption and CO2 include:

1. Setting governors on new trucks to limit speeds to no more than 68 mph and reduce the national speed limit to 65 mph for all vehicles. Bringing speed limits down to 65 mph would save 2.8 billion gallons of diesel fuel for trucks in a decade and reduce CO2 emissions by 31.5 million tons.
2. Reduce engine idling. Idling annually consumes an estimated 1.1 billion gallons of diesel fuel. Options currently available to fleets to minimize discretionary idling have the potential to reduce CO2 emissions by an estimated 61.1 million tons over the next ten years—the equivalent of 16 million Americans not driving for a year.
3. Increase fuel efficiency by encouraging participation in the US EPA SmartWay Transport Partnership Program. This would also require transportation companies to remove older, less-efficient models from their routes, which has proven to be a controversial measure for business competition.
4. Participate in and budget for a fuel tax hike in order to improve highways to reduce congestion. The ATA has recommended a 20-year program, focused initially on fixing critical bottlenecks in the first ten years to save 45.2 million tons of emissions.
5. Use more productive truck combinations. Research shows that increased volumes of freight can be moved with less fuel by using a smaller number of large trucks rather than a larger number of small trucks. A reduction of 294.7 million tons of CO2 could be achieved with these changes.
6. Support national fuel economy standards for trucks. The American Trucking Association supports setting national fuel economy standards for trucks that reduce fuel consumption, given they don't reduce the performance of the vehicles.

While the partnership between government regulatory offices and private enterprise can be tense in many industries, transportation and trucking companies share a strong commitment to boosting efficiency and lowering operating costs for their customers. In the new century, it's becoming evident that trucking agencies will both adhere to guidelines from and contribute progressive ideas to Green Industry. Transportation is "Going Green" because sometimes it's about more than just a tighter bottom line.

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