Study Says Fleets Reap More Savings With Investment in Fuel Technologies
This story appears in the Sept. 15 print edition of Transport Topics.
Ten large trucking fleets reduced their annual fuel costs by $7,200 per truck by instituting an array of technologies and practices to increase efficiency, according to an annual industry survey.
The North American Council for Freight Efficiency’s study showed that the surveyed fleets — with 41,000 tractors and 130,000 trailers — in 2013 boosted their adoption rate of such measures to 50%, up from 31% since 2003, while improving their fuel economy by 8% over 2011 levels to an average of 6.77 mpg.
The per-truck savings — produced by using everything from speed governors to truck and trailer fairings — was well above the $4,400 per year reported by NACFE in its initial study three years ago.
“These technologies present an enormous opportunity for improved freight efficiency, since there are about 1.5 million tractor-trailers on the road in North America consuming 26 billion gallons of diesel fuel,” said NACFE Executive Director Mike Roeth.
He noted that for every 1% reduction in fuel use, the industry saves 260 million gallons, or about $1 billion at current prices.
The most widespread practices adopted by fleets were use of synthetic transmission oil and axle lube, reduction of empty miles, limiting speed, optimizing routing and engine parameters, minimizing fifth wheel height, adding full-height roof air fairings and improving aerodynamics.
The availability of options has reached a point that fleets must choose between items that serve the same function, Roeth said. An example would be auxiliary power units, which can be powered either by diesel fuel or electricity.
“A number of these technologies are either/or — you wouldn’t buy both on the same truck — so that 50% number could never get to 100%,” he told Transport Topics. But “it’s really higher than 50% if you look at what you could put on the truck.”
NACFE looked at 66 initiatives in six categories: idle reduction, chassis, practices, tires and wheels, and tractor and trailer aerodynamics. Some of the technologies with the greatest gains since 2012 were:
• Tractor chassis skirts: used by 40% of fleets, up from 27%.
• Fixed fifth wheel with minimum gap: 51%, up from 38%.
• Specified weight reduction on tractors: 54%, up from 44%.
• Specified weight reduction on trailers: 60%, up from 50%;
• Spec’ing dead axles: 14% up from 10%.
• Switching to automated transmissions: 20%, up from 0.
“Data show that fleets are increasing their adoption rates of these technologies and seeing measurable improvements in fuel economy,” Roeth said.
And they are seeing results, despite the added costs of adoption. “The fleets we studied saw a payback in three years,” Roeth said. “We anticipate this payback will improve, going forward, as more fleets adopt these technologies.” The fleets in this year’s study were UPS Inc. (which ranks No. 1 in the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest U.S. and Canadian for-hire carriers), Con-way Truckload (part of Con-way Inc., which ranks No. 4), Schneider (No. 7), Ryder System (No. 11), Werner Enterprises (No. 14), C.R. England (No. 20), Bison Transport (No. 55), Challenger Motor Freight (No. 77), Paper Transport and Frito Lay.
“We’ve been working with innovative companies that we think really know what they’re talking about when they make these decisions on spec’ing technologies,” Roeth told TT.
The fleets, which represent about 2.5% of trucks in North America, “provide us data, learn from each other and allow us to present that data to the industry and the other [fleets],” he said.
“What we’re really trying to learn is which technologies are uniform across the fleets — what did they buy, or not buy? — and then we can see how that compares with the 1.5 million trucks out there.”
That uniformity might not apply to natural gas-powered trucks because equipment on CNG- and LNG-fueled trucks may prevent installation of some fuel-saving technologies, Roeth said.
“A lot of these technologies, such as wide-base tires and trailer skirts, can be applied to natural-gas vehicles, but many of them are not available” because things such as cab-extenders can interfere with the nat-gas fuel-tank configurations, Roeth said.
“It’s an issue, because right now, natural gas has a lower fuel economy than diesel, and fleets would like to get that higher, even though they’re spending less on the fuel itself,” he told TT.
“Getting those features that are more common to diesel trucks on natural-gas trucks would really help those trucks’ performance,” he added, but “a lot of these features cost money,” and if a fleet is already spending $30,000 to $50,000 more for a nat-gas option, it’s harder to justify.
