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Every litre of diesel burned releases 2.63kg of CO, into
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the atmosphere. There ain't no way around it. 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.
Tony Pain, marketing director at Daf Truck UK, has put a lot of investigation into discovering exactly how big and efficient the UK truck fleet has been since the 1950s. 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 Commercial Motor from 1950 counts the UK HGV parc at 437,000: today's figure is about 430,000, albeit 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 Pain. "We tend to double-shift them and deliver at night, all of which has helped reduce the number on the roads."
But if we are carrying twice as much freight, surely we are using considerably more fuel than in the past? 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 CO, than in 1977," says Pain.
If you convert that into CO2 per tonne carried, it is even more impressive and translates into a 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 — a greenhouse gas with 200 times the warming power of CO., — has 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. It has been said that only mobile hand-held communications has developed faster than automotive engine-emissions technology," he says.
Pain points out that the general public is oblivious to these gains in environmental sustainability. "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 we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that one truck can deliver 15 van-loads to a supermarket, and those goods will be transported home in 300 cars." The number of cars, incidentally, has increased I3-fold since 1950.
Economy
When it comes to it, cutting emissions is good and necessary, but the key driver has to be fuel economy. Even without the prohibitive levels of tax levied on fuel in the UK for 25 years, diesel has always represented the largest part of an operator's running costs — and the biggest drain on cashllow. 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 they may not always have been aware of it, the road transport industry has always moved towards greener running — every litre saved is 2.63kg of CO2 saved. Some of the efficiency gains made are down to running much larger vehicles, such as the move from 40to 44-tonne trucks, and changing driver behaviour. The road transport industry as a whole has invested heavily in driver training, partly through schemes such as Safed (Safe and Fuel Efficient Driving), and discouraging the heavy right foot and unnecessary idling. But changes in driver behaviour have also been pushed by technology, 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.
Much more information about the driver has also become available. "There has never been greater visibility of data," says Cussans. "The difference between an average and a good driver can be 10% diesel usage. That's why we offer performance data with all maintenance contracts." Optimised drivelines have done much to promote fuel economy — in fact, manufacturers are bringing out new systems all the time. Renault will unveil its Optifuel system at the CV Show at the NEC next month. Equally, manufacturers were forced to go some way to meet the stringent Euro emissions legislation. Selective Catalytic Reduction was a breakthrough for the industry because it got the job done fast — Exhaust Gas Recirculation took longer to reach Euro-5. but offers potentially a lower carbon footprint, because there is no need to process or transport additives.
These huge strides in efficiency are not something we should take for granted, but that we should sing out about to the world. And while it's true to say that the bottom line might have been more of a motivator for road transport operators than saving the world, that is changing, too. A Freight Best Practice spokesman told us recently: "Even a couple of years ago, we had to sell fuel economy to people as a money-saving initiative. They were less interested in the environmental benefits. Now, however, we can have that conversation. Operators are interested in playing their part for the environment."
That is certainly borne out if you look at the impressive list (below, left) of road transport fleets — big and small — doing their bit to make their operation greener.
Greener vehicles Of course, as well as becoming more efficient at burning diesel, the road transport industry has also pioneered alternative fuel engines. Although none have such a broad range of uses as diesel just yet, there is still a range of options available for different applications.
Urban vehicles, in particular, can now be powered by electricity, which, although it relies mainly on fossil fuels to recharge the batteries, is completely emission-free at the tailpipe. Electric vehicles are most often associated with Smith Electric and Modec, but hybrids are fast making their way into the commercial offerings of large truck manufacturers.
Hybrids Hybrids have the advantage of electric start-up, and clean running in heavy urban traffic, where many gear changes and frequent pull-aways can push up diesel emissions. Hybrids also recapture some of the energy lost when braking and store it for the next acceleration. On trunk roads at optimum speed, diesel once again becomes the most effective and efficient power source, Renault's Hybrys is one example, but Iveco's EuroCargo and Daily will also be in production as hybrids this year. Volvo says its FM hybrid can offer up to 35% fuel savings, while the hybrid Fuso Canter — with a three-litre Euro-4 diesel engine coupled to a 35kW electric motor — which Mercedes is trialling with 10 customers, boasts 20%.
Hydrogen is great at storing energy, but the electricity will generally come from an unsustainable source. Hydrogen is expensive to make and difficult to store, too. Despite these drawbacks, companies such as MAN have been pouring research money into hydrogen fuel cells that have been powering municipal buses in Germany for some time.
Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) and Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) both have their proponents among road transport operators — and their detractors. But manufacturers have been working consistently to improve the performance of gas-powered trucks so that, for instance, there is no longer the noticeable power loss that caused concern a few years ago.
Biofuel
A front-runner in the alternative fuels race is biofuel. All the manufacturers have embraced them, upgrading warranty support from the standard 5% pretty much on demand, provided the operator respects the shortened service intervals.
However, biofuels have become controversial, mainly because of the polities of food production and the proliferation of ecologically unsustainable source crops, such as palm. But the fact remains that biofuels are an important and, crucially, an available part of easing pressure on oil reserves and cutting emissions. There are plenty of environmentally friendly feedstocks developing, and these will be important as the basis of the next generation of gas-to-liquid fuels made from biomass.
Road transport operators have done much to create and shape the biofuels industry; manufacturers in their turn have attempted to read the market and provide answers to some of the emerging questions. Scania, for instance, has been running bioethanol buses — it has now become the first to engineer a bioethanol truck. Bioethanol, more usually a replacement for petrol, has a wider range of feedstocks, including wheat, sugar beet and peas, so does not necessarily compete with UK food producers for limited resources. Ken Moore, the technical communications manager at Iveco, says another untapped source manufacturers will turn their attention to is biogas. Essentially, the three immediate sources are household waste, farm waste and sewage, all of which generate huge quantities of methane. A simple and cheap treatment can remove the CO, and water, and the gas can be burned cleanly,.
Dimethyl ether, biogas and combinations of gas with diesel all present more possibilities.
So it's no wonder that Moore feels the achievements of the road transport industry should not be underestimated. "We've done very well to be where we are," he points out. "We had a harder proposition than the car industry, because we are working with diesel, with extremely demanding customers and with much smaller production numbers. Yet this industry has sustained considerable environmental innovation." •