December 2013

Gasoline prices have dropped recently, but they have been over $4.00/gallon and could easily return “north” of there if several geopolitical situations occur. As upheavals in the Middle East, Russia, and Latin America show, even matters far away and outside the government’s control can reverse long-held trends and cause oil to be more expensive.

For many companies, but perhaps more important, departments, divisions, and offices, energy is a significant portion of expenses; cutting fuel costs is an important way to help the bottom line and preserve your budget. While using natural gas for boilers and renewable energy for electricity can be feasible, transportation is a major problem, as there are few reliable substitutes for gasoline and diesel fuel, particularly for large vehicles, such as trucks. It is imperative to implement a conservation program to control costs. And if you have a sustainability or energy plan, this will fit in and contribute significantly. What follows are 5 tips to reduce fuel usage in your transportation sector.

• Manage your fleet size and usage. When fuel and space were cheaper, it was feasible to purchase extra trucks or cars for your fleet. You never want to be caught short! But now, given the extra fuel needed sitting in an idle truck (not to mention the payments on the vehicle), this could be a good time to re-evaluate the size of your fleet. Can you reasonably downsize the number of vehicles? Are they the right size or contain the right features for their exact needs (transporting materials or salespeople)? For example, several major companies give their sales staff incentives to order fuel-efficient cars rather than big, flashy gas guzzlers, which ultimately has saved them money in avoided fuel purchases. With the US CAFÉ standard recently raised for passenger cars to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, opportunities exist for a smart fleet program for fuel cost savings.

• Programs to drive more effectively. It may seem impractical, even silly, to set driving standards for your employees or professional truck drivers who have many years of experience, but re-educating based on recent studies can result in stretching out a fleet’s fuel usage. For example, excess braking reduces fuel economy by as much as 33% at highway speeds. Idling also decreases average fuel efficiency. While turning a car off and then back on a minute later made no sense years ago, new fuel injection technology reduces the fuel necessary to turn on a car. If a car is stopped for more than 10 seconds, tests have shown that it makes sense to turn your car off, then back on. OK, it may be impractical to do this at a traffic light, but other opportunities exist to turn off a vehicle for fuel savings. Also, be aware that more and more municipalities ban idling.

• Trip management. Plan out all trips ahead of time to minimize time lost and fuel used in being lost. As was well publicized, a few years ago UPS invested in software to develop routes for all deliveries that took the least amount of time and amount of fuel. In the first year, they reported to have saved over 3 million gallons of diesel fuel. One policy UPS added was to minimize left turns. It was more cost-effective to drive a longer distance and make multiple right turns than to make a left turn. In addition, combining stops and avoiding frequent short trips will improve your overall fuel economy. One more thing that affects fuel economy is the terrain. Hilly terrain and unpaved roads adversely affect fuel economy, so planning out routes that minimize these will conserve fuel use.

• Maintain your fleet. Your fleet should have a regular maintenance performed thoroughly and on schedule. A poorly maintained automobile or truck not only burns more fuel, but also requires more repairs and more frequent replacement, costing more money. Maintenance is necessary for the entire vehicle, from engines, radiators, and fuel injectors to brakes, filters, and tires. They all can affect fuel economy. Your cost to maintain your vehicles are easily made up in avoided replacement costs and fuel combustion.

• Alternative fuels. Research whether alternative fuels can successfully be implemented in your fleet and what the potential savings and costs are. For example, can your trucks be converted to burn used vegetable oil, which certainly has a combustion capability? If so, what are the costs of such a conversion and what is the availability and cost of such oil? Waste vegetable oil is available in greater quantities than ever and, in some areas, can be obtained for free. If your processes result in waste vegetable oil, not only would you be avoiding significant waste disposal costs, but it can substitute for diesel fuel in your trucks, extra savings!

Finally, when implementing a transportation energy conservation program, it is important to catalog progress. Therefore, recordkeeping is important and will lead important information. How many miles are your vehicles being driven? How much (less) are you buying fuel? Is your overall fuel economy changing? While this may seem daunting and “just another thing that has to be done”, it is not as difficult as you may think because this can be combined with your recording of fuel purchases in Accounts Payable. For all recorded fuel purchases, include the code for the particular vehicle and the odometer readings and now you can easily get a feel for your progress in not only fuel cost savings, but also can compute relative fuel economy for individual or groups of vehicles in your fleet. You can see changes over time and correlate them to functions (more or fewer sales calls in different seasons), the weather, locations, etc.

CCES has experience and can assist you in developing a dependable transportation energy conservation program or an energy conservation program for all of your organization’s functions. In either case, we can design and manage such a program to maximize your cost benefits and to dovetail it to your greenhouse gas reduction or sustainability program. Contact us for more information.