TORONTO — Times may be tough, but that doesn’t mean that truckers aren’t seeing green of another shade.

Ontario trucking companies, according to a recent survey of members by the Ontario Trucking Association, are ready to embrace aftermarket technology that improves fuel efficiency and reduce GHG emissions.

OTA president David Bradley, says there are barriers, however — both regulatory and financial impeding the industry from accelerating the market penetration of proven, green heavy-duty technology.

"Some of the old rules governing truck weights and dimensions standards, which were written at a time when environmental considerations were not on the radar screen, don’t provide the flexibility to allow carriers to add some of the technologies to their tractors or trailer," he stated in a press release. "And, there is the current reality that the industry simply doesn’t have the capital or the cash to re-equip the majority of their fleet even with the payback that improved fuel efficiency brings. Credit has become very hard to get; the banks are making it tough on truckers these days."

OTA cites its enviroTruck concept as one initiative truckers want to get on board with, but find it financially restricting to do so on a larger scale. 

Envirotrucks are fuel efficient power
units with single tires, boat tails,
trailer skirts, and speed limiters.

CTA figures that if the entire Canadian heavy truck fleet were switched to enviroTruck standards the GHG savings would be in excess of 11.5 tones annually.

The OTA has been requesting enviroTruck tax leniency for years, but so far governments have been slow to react. 

The OTA survey revealed that close to three quarters of respondents have introduced in-cab heaters into their fleet to avoid having to run the engine to keep cabs warm in the winter.

Almost half of the responding fleets said they have purchased auxiliary power units (APUs) which heat and cool the truck cab through a separate electronic unit.

OTA says investments in both of these technologies are currently being encouraged through a modest $2.9 million over 4 years Ontario Ministry of Transportation initiative called the Green Commercial Vehicle Program. (BC also pledged $2.5 million over three years for enviroTruck) 

Until a couple of years ago APU’s also received partial rebates from the federal government through a Natural Resources Canada program. However, that project was scrapped by the Harper government when it took power and has since only been partially resurrected.

Plus, the current incentive programs do not include the full scope of proven fuel efficiency technologies, such as wide-base single tires (49% of OTA carriers say they are introducing them). 

CTA is calling for restoration of the full program as well as giving truckers the same accelerated capital cost allowances that other industries receive when they buy environmental technology. Harmonizing standards among all provinces is another positive step.

"Ontario made the progressive step of increasing the axle weight allowances to better accommodate the wide-base single tires which was very welcome; the key now is to get people moving quicker to these more fuel efficient tires and cost is a factor, especially these days," says Bradley. 

Also, new trailer skirts (9% of fleets said they had introduced them) and rear of trailer aerodynamic devices, commonly referred to as boat tails (only 2 percent) are other technologies that could be accelerated, but in the case of the latter, only smaller models are allowed, unlike the U.S.

Bradley says MTO was initially worried about the safety implications of the overhang from a full boat-tail, "but we’ve asked them to review that matter.”

"Ontario is further ahead than a lot of Canadian jurisdictions,” Bradley notes, citing wide-base single tires and a pilot project to test longer truck combinations as two examples. But he says the province and the feds could do more to support enviroTruck.

"The industry’s economic goals and society’s environmental goals have never been more aligned."