Website Aims to Lower Fuel Cost for Trucks

The Carbon War Room, together with the North American Council for Freight Efficiency, has launched Truckingefficiency.org, a website that aims to cut fuel costs for tractor-trailers by as much as 50 percent.

The website includes about 70 trucking efficiency technologies, including aerodynamics, tires and idle reduction.

According to the Carbon War Room, truck owners currently spend an average of $74,000 per truck per year on fuel. Through widespread adoption of commercially available technologies already on the market, the industry could save up to $40 billion in fuel costs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent.

The website allows users to browse fuel efficiency opportunities either by type of technology or by operational profile.

The website’s content is organized under broad categories of technologies:

• Idle reduction
• Chassis
• Tires and rolling resistance
• Powertrain
• Tractor aerodynamics
• Trailer aerodynamics
• Operational practices

In addition, a trucking operation can explore the material based on its operating parameters, such as whether the operation:

• Has dedicated or known routes vs. wide-ranging routes
• Averages speeds under or over 45 mph
• Performs maintenance in-house or outsources it

Alongside the new website, trucking efficiency workshops will be held to bring together industry leaders and technology experts to learn about technologies and openly debate the benefits and challenges of adopting them.

According to Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group and co-founder of the Carbon War Room, the initiative will stimulate increased adoption of efficiency technologies among truck owners and operators, and help them make significant, long-term savings on fuel costs and carbon emissions.

In 2012, the Carbon War Room and Trimble published a report stating that massive fuel cost savings and reductions in greenhouse gas emissions were possible by using existing technologies.

Increased fuel efficiency for trucks has also been an advocacy area for both the EPA and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in recent years.