Author: Sean M. Lyden

To make a real impact on cutting carbon emissions, a fleet needs to make huge investments in new clean-fuel technologies, right?

Not necessarily.

Take Time Warner Cable Inc. (TWC), for example. The telecommunications giant is on track to cut fleet-wide fuel consumption by nearly 1 million gallons in 2016, with only a modest investment in green technologies, such as plug-in hybrids and battery-electric vehicles. The bulk of the fuel savings is coming from TWC’s vehicle replacement strategy; the company has recently changed its bucket and pickup truck specifications to generate substantial gains in fuel economy.

And it’s this progress in cutting fuel consumption and carbon emissions that has led TWC to become one of the first 10 companies in the U.S. to be named an accredited sustainable fleet as part of a new accreditation program launched by the National Association of Fleet Administrators (NAFA) in 2015.

According to NAFA, the Sustainable Fleet Accreditation Program (www.nafasustainable.org) recognizes fleets for “their commitment to sustainability with levels of recognition based on actual reductions in net environmental impacts,” including improving air quality through emissions reduction, increasing fuel efficiency and reducing fuel usage.

Utility Fleet Professional recently spoke with longtime fleet professional George Survant, senior fleet director at TWC, to learn more about how the company has been able to make significant progress toward sustainability in a way that’s also financially sustainable for the company. Here are three strategies that emerged from the conversation.

Strategy #1
Bucket Trucks: Switch to Diesel, Reduce Weight and Cut Idle
For years, TWC spec’d its Ford F-450 35-foot bucket trucks with V-10 gasoline engines. But a couple years ago, Survant began replacing the gas trucks with ones equipped with diesel engines, lighter-weight bodies and idle reduction technologies.

The impact? In 2014, TWC cut fuel consumption by 700,000 gallons in its bucket truck fleet alone. Last year, after replacing about half as many vehicles as they did in 2014, the company still reduced fuel consumption by 256,000 gallons.

How did the change in specs achieve these results?

First, consider the use of lightweight materials in the truck body and equipment specs. The lighter the truck, the less power – or fuel – it requires to propel the vehicle. “We incorporate aluminum and fiberglass wherever possible in our body designs, which has taken our rolling weight down between 700 and 800 pounds per truck,” Survant said.

Then there’s the idle mitigation technology, including electric power take-off, which eliminates hours of engine idle while service technicians operate the aerial boom.

Finally, take into account the switch to the more fuel-efficient diesel engine. How much of a difference has that made? “Excluding the impact of our idle mitigation systems, we went from about 5.6 mpg with our gas bucket trucks to getting 8.7 mpg with the new lighter-weight diesel-powered buckets,” Survant said.

That’s a 55 percent bump in fuel economy.

Strategy #2
Pickups: Right-Size Trucks and Powertrains
In 2014, Survant began replacing TWC’s Ford F-250 pickups powered by a V-8 with the redesigned F-150s equipped with the fuel-sipping V-6 EcoBoost engine.

“For years we bought F-250s on the operating premise that it took the big V-8 engine to haul around the loads we were hauling,” Survant said. “But today we’re doing exactly the same job with remarkably good performance with a 2.7-liter EcoBoost [V-6].”

According to Ford, the lightweight aluminum body design for the new F-150 sheds about 700 pounds from the previous model, which has enabled fleets like TWC to consider downsizing to a lighter truck, without sacrificing payload requirements.

What has been the impact on fuel economy?

“What we’re seeing with the new trucks fully loaded and fully burdened, month in and month out, is about 15.7 mpg, compared to about 10 mpg with the legacy trucks,” Survant said.

Going to a smaller engine was just one factor in the equation in reducing fuel use, Survant explained. “One of the most amazing things for us is the stop-start technology with the new engines. In New York City, some of our best-performing vehicles are actually these full-sized F-150 pickups because they turn off at stop signs and stoplights.”

But how has this change to trucks with smaller engines impacted driver acceptance? Has TWC experienced any sort of complaints or resistance from drivers?

Not so far. “Our acceptance of these vehicles has been so good that we’ve had a little bit of a dispute among drivers over who gets a new vehicle,” Survant said. “They’re keyed up to argue, ‘I need this truck more than you need it.’”

Strategy #3
Expand Biodiesel Use and Electrification
What is TWC doing with alternative fuels to cut carbon emissions?

“Our focus has been on [alternative] fuels in a few aspects of our fleet,” Survant said. “One, with our shift to diesel, we’re trying to structure a program where we can access biodiesel on a broader scale than we do today. Almost all diesel products have some percentage of biodiesel through the public distribution systems today. But we really want to ramp that up. We want to get our drivers to use, on average, a higher concentration of biodiesel. The second point is that we have hybridized all of our passenger car fleet. And third, we’re engaging an action plan where we’re putting motor pools with electric vehicles into places where we have high concentrations of employees who don’t have assigned vehicles.”

In terms of the EV motor pools, Survant offered this example: “We have 1,600 vehicles in 16 square miles in Manhattan. There’s a lot of opportunity for us to have pools used there. We’re embarking on a program this year to partner with Ford to put some Ford Focus electrics in place, and we’re working through permitting for the installation of recharging facilities as we speak.”

Survant said the company is looking to roll out similar EV programs in other urban areas, such as Los Angeles and Kansas City, Mo., in the near future.

What about propane autogas and natural gas vehicles?

“Right now, we’re really not spending any money in propane and natural gas,” Survant said. “That’s because our trucks are domiciled at our drivers’ homes at night, and they’re not accessible to centralized fueling. We don’t have much control over where our technicians live for us to be able to take real good advantage of a public-accessible alt-fuel station. So, there are only a handful of co-located places in the country where we even have a remote opportunity to do that.”

The Bottom Line
For Survant and TWC, any fleet sustainability initiative needs to keep the overall business in mind. “We have not been as far out on the leading edge as some fleets have been with alt-fuel development or hybridization of service vans or trucks,” Survant said. “Instead we tie fuel reduction goals into our vehicle replacement strategy so that it’s not disruptive to our business and doesn’t require external funding. Our objective is that everywhere we operate, we’re going to make continuous and steady, if somewhat modest, improvements.”

There’s a lot of hype around telematics – and for good reason.

When properly configured and maintained, telematics works like a sophisticated air traffic control system for your fleet. It uses GPS tracking and wireless connectivity to stream real-time vehicle location and performance data, giving you all the information you need – at a glance – to make smart decisions that reduce your fleet’s fuel costs and carbon footprint, improve vehicle utilization rates and promote safer driver behaviors.

But the qualifier here is the phrase “properly configured and maintained.” That’s because even when you’ve selected the right telematics system for your fleet, the installations and ongoing maintenance can get tricky, especially when you’re trying to track hundreds or thousands of fleet assets across multiple locations in a large service area.

At least that has been the experience for Ameren Illinois Company (AIC), a rate-regulated gas and electric utility headquartered in Collinsville, Ill., which completed its telematics hardware installations on about 2,300 vehicles and pieces of equipment in November 2014. The company currently has 3,300 total assets including trailers.

Overall Success
On one level, AIC has already received value from its telematics deployment, generating meaningful fuel cost savings the first full year (2015). This is largely attributed to engine idle reduction, according to Beth Daiber, CPA, supervisor of fleet administration for AIC.

Telematics has also helped AIC work with police to track down and recover a stolen asset, as GPS data showed the vehicle traveling through downtown St. Louis.

And AIC employees who are questioned about their driving or vehicle handling have found that telematics data can help set the record straight. “We can quickly pull the data and in many cases see that our drivers were operating safely,” Daiber said.

Data Quality Challenges
Yet, on a practical level, telematics is only as valuable as the quality of the data it generates. And sometimes that quality can be harder to achieve on a day-to-day basis than what you might expect, said Dan Remmert, manager of fleet services for AIC.

Take, for example, disruptions in wireless connectivity, where the vehicle’s GPS signal gets lost, leading to false reports.

“We’d pull idle reports on vehicles and started seeing odd data, such as a vehicle showing that it idled longer than the actual engine hours,” Remmert said. “You know it’s not correct, but it took us some time to figure out what was going on. In some cases, a vehicle would be in a garage and lose connectivity for several hours, but because of the programming of the software, when the signal returned, the data indicated that the vehicle had been idling when in reality it was parked and the ignition was shut off.”

How did AIC resolve the issue? “It was actually a third-party contractor performing on-site repairs on our vehicles who noticed that, when these units pulled into a garage, they lost GPS connectivity,” Daiber said. “Once we told our telematics provider what we were seeing with the garage issue, they were able to rectify it by making adjustments in the software logic.”

But sometimes disruptions in connectivity have nothing to do with the telematics hardware or software itself; if a backup asset sits too long, the vehicle’s battery will eventually die – and so will the GPS signal. At that point, the vehicle disappears from view, along with its data, impacting the accuracy of reports.

Getting unresponsive GPS units back online can be a challenge, especially for larger fleets, Daiber said. “The problem is, it’s never the same asset. You fix one, but then you’ve got three other ones that aren’t working. It’s a moving target.”

Real-World Advice
So, what are some lessons learned from AIC’s telematics deployment that you can apply to your own fleet? Remmert and Daiber offered these tips.

1. Network with peers.
“Network with other fleet managers in the utility industry to learn what has worked and what hasn’t,” Remmert said. “I think you really need to focus on getting advice within the utility industry because utility fleets have a unique set of needs and challenges that are different than those of, say, a delivery fleet.”

2. Plan for ongoing maintenance.
“Before you even start installations, have a plan as to how you’re going to maintain those units,” Daiber said. “That was something that I don’t think was fully on our radar before we got into this. We didn’t anticipate the amount of time it would take to maintain the hardware.”

3. Test data definitions during the pilot phase.
“When you’re doing a pilot [where the telematics provider allows you to test the system], really get down into the weeds about the data itself and test the reports so you’re actually getting what you think you’re getting,” Remmert said. “We really struggled with setting up our data definitions correctly upfront. I don’t blame that on the telematics provider. We had to understand what we wanted. What defines idle? What defines a backing event? You have to spend time working with your internal customers to determine what definitions they want set and then work with your telematics provider to help you get it done right.”

4. Get buy-in across the organization.
“Involving stakeholders throughout the company has been essential in the success of our telematics deployment,” Remmert said. “As an organization, we agreed that fleet would be responsible for managing the installs, maintenance and the reporting aspects of the system, but it’s really a full company initiative – not just fleet’s. We focused on getting all of senior leadership’s and other stakeholders’ buy-in before moving forward, which helped make the transition to GPS tracking go more smoothly.”

Daiber agreed. She said that when the fleet team set out to create an idle reduction policy to coincide with the telematics capabilities, they worked closely with AIC’s human resources group and equipment end users to craft a policy that would be practical and acceptable to all parties. “We went out into the field and received input from the end users, learning about their challenges, finding out why they idle their vehicles and uncovering ideas where we could reduce idle without negatively impacting driver productivity,” Daiber said. “We avoided creating an environment where the end users feel like they’re being watched and judged. That’s important to ensure that everyone is committed to continuous improvement.”

The Bottom Line
Despite some of the challenges his team has encountered with ensuring the quality of the data, Remmert said that, overall, telematics has transformed AIC’s fleet operations and is already generating actionable results. “At first you might feel like you’re beating your head against the wall, trying to manage all the complexities involved, but it’s worth it to get a final product that will help you manage your fleet performance more efficiently today and into the future,” he said.