As much as I’d like it to be otherwise, for the foreseeable future, the trucking industry will continue to be virtually 100% dependent on fossil fuels for energy to power our fleets. As such, the industry will remain for some time a significant source of carbon emissions.

Hybrids, electric trucks and other emerging technologies all have promise, but as we all learned in high school, the physics of applying energy to mass to achieve motion are pretty absolute. It takes a certain amount of energy to pull a heavy-duty Class 8 tractor- trailer – up to 80,000 pounds of truck and freight -- down the road. And while diesel engines are getting more efficient and eco-friendly every year, they still burn diesel, which at Con-way, equates to about 150 million gallons a year.

Yet when it comes to how we operate trucks, there are small and relatively easy actions that can lead to big victories for reducing carbon emissions. One of the answers is found in two simple words: Slow Down.

We did this in 2008 for both our less-than-truckload and full-truckload operations at Con-way.  In our LTL operations, which run both in cities and between them, we turned back the throttle governors of our trucks to run at a maximum speed of 62 mph, down from 65.  In our truckload operation, which runs mostly long-haul highway miles across the nation, we turned back their speed governors to 65 mph from 70 mph.

In the process, we made a couple of discoveries.  We saved fuel, to the tune of 6.6 million gallons annually, and saw a roughly 3% to 5% improvement in fuel mileage.  We lowered annual emissions of CO2 produced by our fleets, reducing them by more than 73,000 tons over previous levels.   The change didn’t impact on-time service since on an average run of 500 miles, the speed reduction in our LTL operations added about 25 minutes to the run time.

We also found benefit from an entirely different perspective.  Slowing down can make trucks safer.   At 70 mph, a truck will travel 257 feet in the average reaction time it takes a driver to apply the brakes when recognizing an object in the road ahead.   At 65 mph, that reaction distance goes down to 238 feet, so the truck slows and stops quicker.  And at 62 mph, the reaction distance shortens even further, to 227 feet.  With today’s congested highways, the shorter reaction distance gained by slowing down can mean the all the difference.

The second answer lies with driver behavior.  When truck drivers are trained to progressively shift, to avoid fast starts, hard stops and not idle their tractors, studies have shown that fuel economy can be improved anywhere from 5%  to 10%, depending on the skill of the driver.

The American Trucking Associations has called for a nationwide maximum truck speed limit of 65 mph and supports training drivers to maximize fuel economy. And while we’re not going to be speeding up our fleet (our LTL trucks already are at 62 mph), we believe the ATA standard is one we can and should rally around. It would be good for our industry, good for our environment and good for the motoring public with whom we share the road every day.