IdleAir Execs Defend Idle-Reduction Product After Criticism From TravelCenters CEO

This story appears in the March 14 print edition of Transport Topics.

Executives of IdleAir, a truck stop idle-reduction equipment operator, defended their service after sharp criticism from the company’s former largest landlord.

IdleAir, previously known as IdleAire, relaunched its business last year. Since then, “Fleet activity is starting to come back. There are well over 100 fleets that have shown some activity,” IdleAir President Mike Fielden told Transport Topics on Feb. 28.

He said the poor economy was the main reason for low usage of IdleAir equipment at truck stops.

Fielden commented after remarks by Thomas O’Brien, CEO of TravelCenters of America, the second-largest truck-stop chain in the country, blasted IdleAir’s equipment as a “poor solution” to the problem of cutting back on engines idling at truck stops.

IdleAir’s predecessor company once operated idle-reduction equipment at 134 locations — most of which were TravelCenters truck stops. That company went out of business after two bankruptcy filings and was bought by its present owners, Convoy Solutions LLC, Knoxville, Tenn., in February 2010.

TravelCenters, meanwhile, foreclosed on the old IdleAir’s lease and has since dismantled much of that company’s equipment.

“Generally speaking, the IdleAir equipment was not particularly popular,” TA’s O’Brien said on an investor conference call last month. He also said IdleAir’s equipment was “a very poor solution” for drivers who wanted to avoid idling their trucks.

IdleAir defended its business model, noting that prior to its predecessor’s bankruptcy, more than 1,100 North American truck fleets were using IdleAir equipment.

A TravelCenters spokesman said that the apparent popularity of competing idle-reduction technologies, such as auxiliary power units, make IdleAir less appealing as a TA tenant.

“Our discussions with fleets indicate that many are moving to onboard solutions themselves, either through aftermarket APUs or through units purchased on new vehicles,” the TA spokesman told TT.

In addition, “we surveyed our driver customers and a full 40% of them already have onboard APUs,” the TravelCenters spokesman said.

As for the IdleAir equipment: “I don’t think anybody’s really missing it,” O’Brien said during the February conference call. IdleAir said that the perceived disinterest in its services stems from the financial beating that owner-operators, which represent most of IdleAir’s customers, took in 2009.

“How could you rationalize that people aren’t interested in using the service?” IdleAir’s Fielden asked.

Owner-operators “took it on the chin, which was reflected in IdleAir usage. Those trends were extrapolated, incorrectly we think,” as lack of interest, said Ethan Garber, IdleAir’s CEO.

The Convoy-owned IdleAir has trimmed its network to 21 locations in nine states and plans to have 40 locations open by the end of the year.

TravelCenters of America is no longer IdleAir’s anchor truck stop, although there is still IdleAir equipment at some franchisee-owned TA facilities. Today, most IdleAir parking spots are located at Pilot truck stops. Some Loves Travel Centers locations also feature IdleAir, as do a few independently operated truck stops.

Truck-stop electrification was dominated by the old IdleAir, and the reconstituted company still maintains the only nationwide network of lot-based idle-reduction equipment.

IdleAir’s new strategy involves changes that go beyond name and ownership changes. Notably, the company is planning to offer some services piecemeal.

“We will be offering electricity as stand-alone, television as stand-alone, [heating, ventilation and air conditioning] as stand-alone . . . that’ll be this fall, mostly likely,” Fielden said.

This segmentation of IdleAir’s services will leave the company’s equipment unchanged for now. Future service tweaks, however, could result significant redesigns, Fielden said. At some locations, for example, the big, yellow air ducts that today are an IdleAir hallmark could be removed.