Trucks and Transportation Industry Going Greener, Getting Smarter
R. Colin Johnson | Date: 10-27-09 | Comments: 3
- The trucking industry is adopting hybrid-electric propulsion technologies at a quickening rate.
- As more and more people migrate to cities, more trucks, busses and
delivery vehicles will be needed. At the same time, increasing safety
and emission regulations are encouraging the transportation sector to
become a smarter and more energy efficient industry. This convergence
marks not only a challenge to the trucking industry, but also an
opportunity according to presenters at this week's Hybrid Truck Users Forum (HTUF,
Oct. 27-29, 2009, Atlanta). There truck-, utility- and
military-vehicle makers are showing off their latest hybrid-electric
and high-efficiency designs. IBM, the national sponsor of HTUF, will
unveil there its road map to a greener, smarter trucking industry in a
new study called Truck
2020. See the video.
"Truck 2020" cites statistics which claim that service vehicles will be
the fastest growing segment of the transportation industry over the
next decade. Today trucks represent just 8 percent of the vehicle
market, but nevertheless produce 40 percent of the nitrous oxide
emissions. To make those figures greener, the trucking industry is
adopting hybrid-electric propulsion technologies at a quickening rate.
"These new technologies let us tackle carbon, reduce emissions in our
urban regions and help reduce fuel use," said Bill Van Amburg, senior
vice president at Calstart, which manages the Hybrid Truck Users Forum
in partnership with the U.S. Army’s National Automotive Center (NAC),
and with project support from the Hewlett Foundation and the Department
of Energy (DoE). "High efficiency trucks will be one of those green
sectors that will help transform not just the truck industry, but our
nation."
Hybrid vehicles work by storing energy in batteries, then reusing it to
drive an electric motor that increases gas mileage. The added draw for
trucks and utility vehicles is that they can also use the stored
electrical energy to run their on-board systems. For instance, those
"bucket" lifts that many vehicles use to eliminate the need for ladders
can be powered by batteries instead of leaving the engine idling.
Hybrid electric trucks "are clearly the closest viable choice to
today's fossil fuel internal combustion engine," said Sanjay Rishi,
vice president and co-author of IBM's road map for greening the trucking
industry. "The trucking industry has been long disparaged for its
environmental record--it now stands to make a significant contribution
to energy independence and to reduction of carbon emissions."
IBM's Truck 2020 study is subtitled Transcending Turbulence, because it
provides a road map detailing how the trucking industry can profit by
going green over the next decade. Themes include globalization,
brand development, technology integration, partnerships and work force
transformation, each of which is detailed in the complete Truck
2020 report.
