Trucking Industry Launches Sustainability Initiative

The initiative, “Trucks Deliver a Cleaner Tomorrow,” focuses on reducing fuel consumption and finding innovative ways to reduce carbon monoxide emissions, according to ATA.

ATA President and CEO Bill Graves said the organization has committed to take on measures to reduce fuel consumption by 86 billion gallons and carbon monoxide emissions by 900 million tons for all vehicles over the next 10 years.

“The program is a continuation of environmental advances made by the trucking industry over the last quarter century,” Graves said. “But there’s no doubt that today’s skyrocketing diesel prices give us an additional incentive to roll it out across the industry, and for Congress to provide the support the program needs.”

In a report was developed by the ATA Sustainability Task Force, ATA offered several key recommendations to reduce fuel consumption, including:

• Set governors on new trucks to limit speeds to no more than 68 mph and reduce the national speed limit to 65 mph for all vehicles.
• Reduce engine idling.
• Reduce congestion by improving highways, if necessary by raising the fuels tax.
• Use more productive truck combinations.
• Support national fuel economy standards for trucks.

“This report represents a culmination of many years of groundbreaking efforts on the part of the trucking industry to integrate the most effective diesel consumption reduction techniques into their business models and to transport goods to their destination in the most efficient way we can for us and for our customers,” said ATA Vice Chairman and Chairman of Titan Transfer Inc. Tommy Hodges, who headed the Sustainability Task Force. “As the challenge of global climate change has emerged, we have the added impetus to make progress on those innovations.”

EPA’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality, key executives of many of the nation’s leading freight and trucking companies and others joined ATA to launch this initiative.

To learn more about the sustainability program and to see a list of all companies represented in the task force, visit http://www.trucksdeliver.org.