Truck efficiency solutions

III. Technology solutions

Idle reduction

New cab comfort technologies save up to 8 percent, while still providing a comfortable cab environment during rest stops.

On-board idle reduction equipment includes:

• Auxiliary power units that generate electricity for the cab
  
  
• Direct-fired cab heaters and battery-powered cab cooling systems provide idling-free temperature control
  
  
• Programmable automatic engine shut-off systems

Some truck stops offer electric plugs at parking spaces. Others offer full-service connections, including heating, cooling, electricity, phone, Internet and TV

Improved aerodynamics

Retrofits save up to 10 percent, depending on truck and routing. New aerodynamic truck styles offer further savings.

Straight trucks

• “Bubble” fairings on cargo box
• Cab roof fairings
• Side skirts

Tractors

• Aerodynamic bumpers
• Roof fairings
• Cab-side-extenders
• Tank fairings
• Rubber air dams and skirts

Trailers

• Kingpin set to reduce tractor-trailer gap
• Aerodynamic gap fairings
• Trailer side skirts
• Rear-mounted “trailer tails”

Weight reduction: Lighter trucks mean more payload and higher mpg

• Aluminum wheels and wide base tires cut truck weight by 200 pounds per axle
  
  
• Aluminum axle hubs, clutch housings, 5th wheels and cab frames can trim hundreds of pounds from a truck or tractor
  
  
• Aluminum wheels, roof supports, floors and landing gear can save thousands of pounds
  
  
• Choosing a smaller displacement engine can save up to 1,000 lbs, often with little or no change in horsepower

Fleet modernization: Newer trucks are more efficient and much less polluting

Buying a new truck? New trucks offer improved efficiency in their engines, aerodynamics, tires, and emissions. Be sure you evaluate each of the energy savings measures listed above and calculate their benefit for your fleet. Emissions benefits from new trucks can be large.

• Trucks manufactured after January 2007 emit 90 percent less diesel particulate emissions (soot) and 25 percent less smog-causing nitrogen oxide compared to earlier models.
  
  
• Engines manufactured before 1994 can produce as much as 100 times the amount of particulate matter as a new truck.

Keeping an old truck? Adding a diesel particulate filter to the exhaust of a truck, bus, refuse vehicle or piece of diesel equipment can cut cancer-causing particulate emissions by up to 90 percent. These fine carbon particulates are captured in the filter and incinerated by the hot exhaust.

Reducing diesel particulate emissions reduces “black carbon” in our air. Black carbon emissions can form a layer on snow, and can contribute to asthma and impaired lung development in children.