Canada Gives Thumbs-Up to Trailer Tails
SAN DIEGO – Permission for trucks sporting full-length trailer tails to travel across the highways of Canada took a giant step forward when Canadian transportation ministers approved an amendment on Oct. 1 regarding vehicle weight and height dimension regulations.
“We put the final stake in the plan for the legalization of trailer tails across Canada,” said Andrew Smith, CEO and founder of ATDynamics, which has been working on the initiative since the company’s founding in 2006 and shared the news Oct. 6 at American Trucking Associations’ Management Conference & Exhibition here.
Smith said that with the Canadian amendment to the Federal/Provincial/Territorial Memorandum of Understanding on Interprovincial Weights and Dimensions in place, over $3 billion in diesel fuel savings can be realized over the next 10 years in the longhaul trucking industry.
ATDynamics said the next step is for each Canadian province to issue permits or defer enforcement until legislation is changed to align with the federal allowance for full-length trailer tail devices. The expectation is that provinces will enact interim measures to allow fleets to operate with TrailerTails immediately, as Ontario already has done.
ATDynamics offers a full suite of TrailerTail solutions, including a system that automatically deploys a rear aerodynamic fairing at highway speed. The company says more than 500 trucking fleets in North America have deployed its TrailerTails, including Mesilla Valley Transportation, C.R. England, Prime Inc. and Roehl Transport. Those companies rank No. 20, 22, 66 and 68, respectively, on the Transport Topics Top 100 For-Hire Carriers in the United States and Canada.
ATDynamics also announced that it had recently completed the latest 2014 EPA SmartWay wind tunnel test protocol, which qualifies its TrailerTail 4x4 and Trident paired with ATDynamics side skirts for the new SmartWay Elite performance category. “We can reduce the fuel consumption of the long-haul trucking industry by 9-12% overnight, by putting tails and skirts on the highways,” Smith said.
