AIT Greens Operations of Truck Fleet

Optimization of Freight Operations

• Minimize mileage and maximize cargo carrying ability
• Inefficiencies in freight operations can cause trucks to travel empty (without cargo), use longer or more congested routes, and idle unnecessarily
• These inefficiencies increase fuel consumption and fuel costs, causing trucking companies to miss opportunities to generate revenue
• AIT trucks use a variety of load matching strategies to reduce empty mileage:
• Example: Loading a truck and sending it along its designated route delivering freight - once it arrives to its furthest destination empty, it starts making pickups along the return route
• AIT's truck fleet operates around the clock in three shifts - except for the third shift, trucks are rarely ever sitting idle
• AIT's fleet keeps mileage down to approximately 35,000 miles per year by optimizing its freight operations (shortest route vs. quickest route)
• Improved routing and scheduling/dispatch teams

New Equipment

• 34% of AIT's trucks are 1-year-old, while 48% are 4 years old; resulting in cleaner emission technology and significant long-term cost savings in truck maintenance
• Increased safety, reliability and efficiency

Retreaded Tires

• Actively contributes to helping conserve valuable finite natural resources needed to manufacture tires. For every retread produced, one less new tire needs to be manufactured.
• With retreading, tires stay on the road longer, resulting in fewer discarded tires, which helps reduce scrap tire disposal problems
• Using retreaded tires conserves a valuable nonrenewable resource - oil. Each year, retreading tires saves more than 400 million gallons of oil in North America. While it takes 22 gallons of oil to make a new tire, retreading a truck tire only uses seven gallons of oil. Retreaded tires can also help divert thousands of scrap tires from disposal each year.

Recycle coolant (antifreeze)

• Cost-effective and saves on resources. Antifreeze is produced from natural gas, which is a finite, non-renewable resource.
• For businesses using a lot of antifreeze, such as AIT, implementing an antifreeze recycling program can significantly reduce management costs and lessen the amount of new materials purchased.

Utilize synthetic transmission fluid

• Protects internal driving components, reduces emissions, lasts longer, reduces fuel consumption and prevents environmental pollution
• Extends the life of trucks - in the long run, about 50% cheaper because you only have to change the transmission fluid approximately twice during the life span of a truck
• Despite the price difference between synthetic transmission fluid vs. regular transmission fluid - approximately $37/quart vs. $12/quart - the long-term savings are phenomenal

Recycle engine oil

• Protects human health and the environment: Recycling used motor oil keeps it from contaminating soil; out of rivers, lakes, streams and groundwater; and away from the beach, aquatic life and wildlife.
• Recycling used motor oil also helps to reduce dependency on foreign oil. Oil is the number one source of energy for the U.S., supplying about 40 percent of the nation's overall energy needs. About half of the oil we consume is produced here in the U.S., while the rest is imported.

Fifteen minute engine idle cutoff

• A typical heavy-duty truck or bus can burn approximately one gallon of diesel fuel for each hour it idles, generating significant amounts of pollution, wasting fuel, and causing excessive engine wear

Sixty-five mile-per-hour speed limitation

• Speed management is an easy and effective way to save fuel, reduce emissions, and prevent excess wear
• Reducing speed can cut truck maintenance costs and reduce the frequency of maintenance work, saving hundreds of dollars per truck each year while keeping revenue-earning equipment on the road
• Fleets that adopt speed policies report added savings due to fewer brake replacements and other service work

Automatic transmissions

• Estimated 5% gain in energy efficiency for trucks with automatic transmissions
• Full power shifts and gain anywhere from four to seven seconds every quarter mile
• Traction and wheel spin: Automatics offer more flexibility for maneuverability, traction and graduality in poor terrain
• Hills and rollback safety - since they are safer, no loss of control
• Computer controlled - gentler on the entire drive system, resulting in overall less maintenance
• Limited cargo damage
• Most power for least amount of fuel
• Avoids common habits that reduce fuel economy: frequent or improper shifting, too-rapid acceleration, too-frequent stops and starts from failing to anticipate traffic flow, and taking circuitous routes

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