Little Green Truck

Little Green Truck: A greener industry

Every litre of diesel burned releases 2.63kg of CO₂ into the atmosphere. It doesn’t matter what type of engine, what size of vehicle or what worthy use it is put to. So, the only way to combat CO₂ emissions from transport is to burn less fuel. And it may surprise you to know that when you look at efficiency figures for the road transport industry, it has consistently been driving down diesel usage – for 50 years.

Today, UK trucks carry five times as much freight as in 1955, and yet today, there are fewer of them on the road. An issue of CM from 1950 counts the UK HGV parc at 437,000; today it is about 430,000, though the trucks today are approximately twice the size – a factor that has done much to contribute to their efficiency. “Trucks today are also better used,” says Tony Pain, marketing director at DAF Truck UK. “We tend to double-shift them and deliver at night, all of which has helped reduce the number on the roads.”

Improved productivity

But if we are carrying twice as much freight, surely we are using considerably more fuel? Not so, says Pain. Road tests from the 1970s show productivity has doubled in 40 years. In 1977, a typical truck ran at 7mpg, carried 19 tonnes and had an average speed of 35mph. By 2007, the tonnes carried per litre of fuel have doubled – and the trucks are, on average, 20% faster. “Compared with a maximum-weight heavy truck in 1977, a comparable truck today would use 20-25% less fuel while carrying more. In all, it will put out 21% less CO₂ than in 1977,” says Pain.

If you convert that into CO₂ per tonne carried, it is an even more impressive 45% decrease. The era of Euro-5 has driven a reduction of 94% in particulate emissions – the sooty particles that can contribute to lung conditions. And NOx – nitrogen-based greenhouse gases with 200 times the warming power of CO₂ – have fallen by 75%. Dave Cussans, operations director at MAN, agrees. “It would take 35 Euro-4 trucks to produce as much NOx and particulate matter as one Euro-0 truck,” he says.

Lack of recognition

Pain points out that the general public is oblivious to these improvements. “Trucks look much as they did back then, only bigger. So people assume they do the same damage,” he says. “It’s easy when you look purely at CO₂ emissions to encourage the use of smaller vehicles. But one truck can deliver 15 vanloads to a supermarket, and those goods will be transported home in 300 cars.” The number of cars, incidentally, has increased 13-fold since 1950.

Steps to efficiency

Cutting emissions is good and necessary, but the key driver has to be fuel economy. Diesel has always represented the largest part of an operator’s running costs – and today, it tends to soak up 40% of operating cash. The less fuel you use per tonne carried, the more profitable you become. So, while it may not always have been aware of it, the road transport industry has always moved towards greener running. This has been achieved through:

• Running much larger vehicles, such as the move from 40- to 44-tonne trucks.
• Investing in driver training, partly through schemes such as SAFED (Safe and Fuel Efficient Driving), and discouraging the heavy right foot and unnecessary idling.
• Technological developments such as automated gearboxes and auto engine stop/start systems, or electronic braking systems, which feed back braking and other system events to the operator.
• Optimised drivelines, which do much to promote fuel economy – and manufacturers are bringing out new systems all the time.
• The Euro emissions legislation. SCR was a breakthrough for the industry because it got the job done fast – EGR took longer to reach Euro-5, but offers a potentially lower carbon footprint, because there is no need to process or transport additives.

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