Eassons Transport of Kentville, Nova Scotia, began hauling apples around the province in 1945.

Any fleet that’s been in business that long is doing something right. Having grown from a single truck to a fleet of more than 300 trucks and 550 trailers, CEO Trevor Bent and his leadership team are still exploring ways of optimizing fleet efficiency.

Bent: We’ve embarked on a continuous improvement journey here about three years ago. We are continuous improvement Lean Six Sigma, and we do a lot of black belt projects and green belt projects. All of our employees are trained in continuous improvement, how that works, and the benefits to the organization. So essentially, we do a lot of brainstorming every month with our CI Excellence Group, and we have a big hopper of ideas for all parts of the business, equipment and environmental practices. Fuel economy is part of that.

Eassons is a refrigerated carrier hauling fresh produce, as well as frozen products. Since refrigeration units burn fuel, they, too, are targets for improvement.

Depending on the temperature setting, those TRUs can burn up to 4 liters of fuel per hour. At an average of 145 hours of run time per month for a single trailer, the fleet collectively burns about 320,000 liters of fuel per month.

Bent: The first one is continuous versus auto-start/stop, which are modes on our reefers. It’s either running all the time or cycling based on the need to keep the temperature within spec. And we can save money by running an auto start-stop versus continuous.

Bent and his vice president of equipment, Jeremy Silver, are shooting for a 10% reduction in runtime for savings in fuel and maintenance costs of about $45,000 per month. That would come with a corresponding reduction of about 86 metric tons of CO2. Bent says they’re also exploring driver-centric fuel-saving initiatives. They have a fuel economy metric in the driver scoring system, which encourages fuel savings, and they’re trying to get buy-in from the workforce with achievable targets.

Bent: Second one is the percentage of time in cruise. So we’ve actually given the drivers a little bit more speed in cruise, two miles per hour versus on the pedal, to encourage folks to run the cruise because we know we tap into other features through the truck to provide better fuel efficiency and better fuel mileage.

Still, helping drivers save fuel, idle reduction is part of that strategy. Trucks are equipped with diesel-fired cab heaters, and shore power plug-ins are being rolled out at company terminals.

Bent: The next one is shore power. We’ve done some work across our different terminals, 7 terminals across the country. Specifically, here at head office, in the last couple of years, we’ve set up more locations for shore power for trucks to park instead of idling. They can plug in and run their inverters and their heaters and that sort of thing to make them more comfortable, but also save money at the same time and reduce emissions.

Equipment is an obvious target for continuous improvement. Eassons regularly updates the fleet with the latest OEM offerings while retiring older, less efficient equipment.

And of course, aerodynamic options are under constant consideration.

Bent: We are certainly constantly working with our OEMs and looking at the technology that is being offered to us through the new features on the trucks and trailers. Aerodynamics, technology in the cab, from smart cruise, all the things that have been provided to us that we are leveraging, trailer tails on the trailers and skirts. These are all things that we are working to enhance and drive up our fuel efficiency. The challenge with this is certainly capital costs, but it’s also replacement costs. It’s not a cheap venture, and we’re always constantly weighing out the benefits versus the ROI and making sure we’re getting that return on investment. So it’s balance, but we’re certainly being as proactive as we can based on the options and looking at the benefits.

Bent says that Eassons is constantly evaluating new tire options with ongoing in-service testing. They’re also moving towards bulk buying of consumables such as diesel exhaust fluid and windshield washer to, as Bent says, reduce costs and keep ‘those darn plastic jugs out of landfill’.

Bent: Green has two meanings at Eassons. We want to be a sustainable company. We’ve been in business for 80 years, and that’s come by good management and looking at ways to save money. But also, we want to be good environmental stewards and looking at sustainability and environmental practices. We’re SmartWay certified, and we want to be here for another 80 years and contributing in a very sustainable way, both in the business and in the environment.