MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. — PeopleNet has announced it’s the first and only telematics company to specifically support the natural gas trucking industry, with products available for both CNG and LNG trucks.

Its system can deliver engine reporting in diesel equivalent gallons, which allows for easy comparisons for multi-fuelled fleets.

“As more fleets experiment with natural gas vehicle adoption to lower the cost of a fleet’s largest expense and reduce greenhouse emissions, they need the ability to compare fuel efficiency across a mixed-vehicle fleet,” said Rick Ochsendorf, PeopleNet executive vice-president. “Collecting and analyzing comparative fuel use is critical for efficiently determining the return on investment (ROI) of moving from diesel to natural gas. In addition, the comparative data PeopleNet provides allows fleets to compare a driver’s MPG while in diesel vehicles with MPG in natural gas vehicles in order to preserve the integrity of driver incentive programs based on performance.”

The PeopleNet system collects fuel consumed by LNG and CNG engines in pounds and automatically converts the usage to a DGE for accurate and efficient comparisons against diesel-fuelled vehicles, the company claims.

“PeopleNet’s engine reporting for natural gas has given us have the ability to segregate data by vehicle and driver, so we can analyze individual truck performance as well as individual driver performance,” said Saddle Creek Transportation’s president, Mike DelBovo. The company runs more than 100 natural gas-powered trucks. “This is critical for identifying trucks that may need maintenance, and drivers with improper driving behaviors and excessive idle. We want to help our drivers adopt habits that help them extend range, which is a huge issue right now since natural gas fuel stations are relatively scarce. It’s imperative that vehicles be able to travel 600 miles per fill.”