Operator:
Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the freight transportation and air quality notable projects seminar. At this time all participants are in a listen only mode. We'll be conducting a live question and answer at the end of this presentation. You may submit questions at any time. If at any time you require audio assistance press star followed by zero. A coordinator will be happy to assist you. Should you experience technical difficulty please contact webex technical support. I will now like to turn over to your host for today's call, Ms. Jennifer Seplow.
Jennifer Seplow:
Good afternoon or good morning to those of you to the West. Welcome to the Talking Freight Seminar Series. My name is Jennifer Seplow and I will moderate today's seminar. Today's topic is Freight Transportation and Air Quality - Notable Practices. Please be advised that today's seminar is being recorded.
Today we'll have two speakers - Sergio Ostria of ICF Consulting and Mike Zatz of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Sergio Ostria is a Senior Vice President with ICF Consulting. He has over eighteen years of experience working with Federal, state, and local transportation agencies in the U.S., as well as government agencies in numerous countries in Latin America, Europe, and Asia. His research has focused on virtually every single and multiple mode of freight and passenger transportation, with special emphasis on the nexus between transportation policy, planning, economic development, and environmental and energy consumption policies. Mr. Ostria has developed frameworks for assessing the need for transportation investments resulting from changes in regional economies, international trade, technology innovation and deployment, marketplace interactions, and government policy. He has conducted numerous studies on emissions and air quality issues relevant to freight transportation in the U.S. Most recently, he directed an environmental impact study (EIS) and general conformity determination of regulations designed to allow Mexico-domiciled carriers to operate in the U.S. beyond border-area commercial zones-;as required by NAFTA. That work involved the development of a comprehensive analysis system to estimate the emissions effects of proposed rules in every air quality non-attainment and maintenance area of the country. He is currently supporting FHWA with a comprehensive study on the emissions and air quality effects of freight transportation and on options for mitigating those effects.
Mike Zatz is an Environmental Engineer with the U.S. EPA's SmartWay Transport Partnership. Mike has an M.S. in Environmental Science and Policy from Johns Hopkins University, and a B.S. in Engineering and Public Policy from Washington University in St. Louis. Mike joined EPA in September 2004, after nearly 14 years with ICF Consulting, including 3 years as Director of ICF's office in Bangkok, Thailand. Mike has over 14 years of experience working with industry in the U.S. and around the world to identify and implement methods for reducing the impacts of various businesses on the environment, with specific expertise in the development and implementation of voluntary industry programs. SmartWay is an innovative voluntary effort between EPA and the freight industry to reduce greenhouse gas and other air emissions, primarily through the implementation of fuel-saving technologies and techniques. The Partnership, which involves both freight shippers and carriers, has grown from approximately 50 Partners at its official launch in February 2004, to over 125 Partners today.
I'd like to go over a few logistical details prior to starting the seminar. Today's seminar will last 90 minutes, with 60 minutes allocated for the speakers, and the final 30 minutes for audience Question and Answer. The Operator will give you instructions on how to ask a question over the phone during the Q&A period. However, if during the presentations you think of a question, you can type it into the smaller text box underneath the chat area on the lower right side of your screen. Please make sure you are typing in the thin text box and not the large white area. Presenters will be unable to answer your questions during their presentations, but I will use some of the questions typed into the chat box to start off the question and answer session in the last half hour of the seminar. Those questions that are not answered will be posted to the Freight Planning LISTSERV. The LISTSERV is an email list and is a great forum for the distribution of information and a place where you can post questions to find out what other subscribers have learned in the area of Freight Planning. If you have not already joined the LISTSERV, the web address at which you can register is provided on the slide on your screen.
If at anytime you would like to zoom in on the slide that is showing on your screen, you can click on the zoom icon at the top of your screen. It looks like a magnifying glass with a plus sign in it.
Finally, I would like to remind you that this session is being recorded. A file containing the audio and the visual portion of this seminar will be posted to the Talking Freight Web site within the next week. To access the recorded seminar, please visit Talkingfreight.webex.com and click on the "recorded events" link on the left side of the page and then choose the session you'd like to view. Due to the size of the file, recorded files are available for viewing/listening purposes only and cannot be saved to your own computer. We encourage you to direct others in your office who may have not been able to attend this seminar to access the recorded seminar.
The PowerPoint presentations used during the seminar will also be available within the next week. I will notify all attendees of the availability of the PowerPoints, the recording, and a transcript of this seminar.
We're now going to hang on a few minutes until 1:00 and wait for a few others to join in. At 1:00 we'll begin. At this point the operator going to put you back in hold. We'll start up again at 1:00, eastern time.
Operator:
Good day, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the freight transportation and air quality notable practices webinar. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. We'll conduct a live question and answer session at the end of the presentation. You may submit questions via the web at any time by using the chat feature in the lower right-hand corner of the screen. If at any time you require audio assistance press star, followed by zero. Should you experience technical difficulties with the presentation, please contact webex technical support. I would now like to turn the presentation over to your host for today's call, Ms. Jennifer Seplow.
J. Seplow:
Thank you. It's now about 1:00. I see that many others have joined us. We're going to begin with our first presentation. Again, today's topic for those of you is who have just joined us is freight transportation and quality, notable practices. The first presentation will be that of Sergio Ostria of ICF Consulting. If you think of questions during the presentation, please type them into the chat area of the screen. The presenters will not be able to answer during the presentation but we'll use those questions in the last half hour of the seminar, Sergio I'm going to get you set up here. Okay. You can go ahead.
Sergio Ostria:
Great, thank you very much. Welcome everyone. I'm happy to be here today and, hopefully, you'll find this interesting. I think it's a very important issue, one that is going to grow in importance as the years go by.
I've structured this presentation into the following sections. First, we'll go over the setting. In essence, attempt to answer the question of why will freight air quality issues become more important in future? Second, I'll go over the results of a study that was recently conducted by the Federal Highway Administration. We'll review the results of the study by showing freight's contributions to the air quality problem at the national and regional levels. We'll review analysis challenges that need focused attention. We'll talk about mitigation strategies. Third, we'll briefly discuss other issues that are relevant to the nexus between freight transportation and the environment, and provide closing thoughts on what needs to be done moving forward.
So, the setting. There is a growing concern about the future performance of the freight system. It is pretty clear that freight transportation is becoming more and more important, not only from the perspective of transportation planning, but also programming and project development. Truck traffic is contributing to worsening highway congestion at a faster rate then passenger traffic. There is no abatement in site with respect to the growth in trucking. Likewise, the capacity of the freight rail system had been drink shrinking in the past. Since 1975, ton miles moved increased by nearly 100%, while road and track miles decreased by 40%. So when you think about things from an intermodal or multimodal context, freight transportation becomes even more important since the modes work together to provide services to shippers. In addition, globalization is straining the capacity of our constrained port system. For example, container traffic at the port of Los Angeles doubled between 1999 and 2004. Finally, in the air sector, there has been significant growth in air freight which could begin to strain our aviation system. Before September 11th, when our airports were facing significant capacity issues, that had started to become an issue. So, overall, the performance of our freight system is being strained and there are significant challenges that have to be addressed not only from the context of planning but on through to project development.
Why is performance such an issue? In other words, why should we be concerned about this significant strain on the freight system? The reality is that there are important links between an efficient and reliable freight transportation system and economic performance. I'm not sure how many economists are on the phone or in the seminar, but if you think about freight transportation as an input factor in the production of things, or products, it becomes apparent that much like labor and capital, transportation is a necessary element in the production and distribution of goods and services. As transportation costs go down, there are potentially significant effects on economic productivity at the firm level and at the national level. In essence, shippers and carriers optimize around logistics and supply-chain management. They optimize around transportation system performance. With the advent of technology, which led to just in time deliveries, shippers and carriers have been organizing their logistics around a high level of transportation system performance. Congestion, however, could force costly redesigns of logistics systems that could affect, in a negative way, economic productivity. When you couple the importance of an efficient, reliable and safe freight system with economic performance, and then overlay on that the significant demand pressures we are facing and will likely face into the future, then the nexus between these trends and the need to start thinking about how air pollution needs to be handled within that context becomes very, very important. In particular, needed investments may be difficult to implement. In other words, as areas continue to face significant capacity challenges, it will become more important to ensure that the contribution of freight carriers to air pollution is addressed in a very proactive way if you're going to implement needed investments and address conformity.
In order to meet the challenge, we need to improve our fundamental understanding of freight emissions. As regions mainstream freight into their planning, programming and project development processes, it will become more apparent that our current understanding of freight emissions needs to be improved to address not only the problem, but to also develop solutions that minimize the contribution of freight to air quality problems. For instance, air quality is a regional issue. Yet, most previous studies have looked at things at the national level. There hasn't been a lot of work comparing freight emissions across regions. Moreover, in most cases a lot of the emissions analysis work has been done as part of the emission inventory work that supports State Implementation Plans, which are developed by state environmental agencies and which are coordinated with transportation plans. Yet, there is no distinction between freight emissions and non-freight emissions categories. Specifically, there is no distinction between passenger rail and freight rail. Isolating the effect of freight rail in particular has not been done effectively. Likewise, there is no distinction of nonroad equipment use in freight ports and airports. And, the trucking emissions estimation processes don't estimate emissions by operational mode such as idling, which is important when you start looking into strategies to reduce the contribution of trucking to air pollution.
Now, I'm going to turn my attention to FHWA's recent study, which was completed this month and will be available shortly. It is entitled "Assessing the Effects of Freight Movement at the National and Regional Level". There were a number of objectives, and I should note that the leadership of FHWA in this area has been very important. The study objectives were as follows. First, the study attempts to fill the void in the current understanding of the air quality impacts of freight transportation. Second, the study evaluates current methods, regulations and the types of freight transportation demand trends that are likely to be coming down the pike so that we have a better understanding of where we can get the biggest return for investments when it comes to mitigation and analysis efforts. Third, the study looks to assess the contribution of freight movements by mode in six metro areas, since fundamentally the contribution of freight movement to emissions differs based on the type of freight foot print that is present in a region (e.g., the level of rail or port activity). Fourth, the study investigates emission reduction strategies that state and local practitioners could implement both in the near term and in the long term. Certainly, a lot of the reduction strategies are technology oriented and are being pushed by regulation. But then there is some important operational strategies that can be implemented by state and local practitioners and decision makers--folks on the front line of confronting these challenges. Fifth, the study recommends needed progressions in analysis methods given likely demand trends and the effects of emissions regulations by mode.
Now, I'm going to turn to what we found as a result of our work. I think that it is important to note that this is really one of the few efforts, if not the only effort out there, that has tried to isolate the contribution of freight activities to total emissions at the national and regional levels; because isolating freight activities has not been the focus of a lot of the efforts that have been related to state implementation plans, for example. This slide gives you a sense of what we're dealing. If you look at the total row, freight contributes about 50% to all mobile source emissions, which includes passenger vehicles. As we know, mobile sources are a major component of emission inventories. So, today freight transportation accounts for about 50% of NOx emissions from mobile sources-half of the problem. When you expand across all emissions sources, freight accounts for over a quarter of the problem, about 27%. The picture changes a little bit with PM 10. It is certainly significant as well. Heavy duty vehicles (trucks), in this case, contribute about 23% of the all PM-10 emissions from mobile sources. So, overall freight is an important consideration when it comes to structuring not only air quality and transportation decision making, but strategies to improve air quality in a specific region. While freight transportation is an important component of the problem, it can be a very important component of the solution.
This next slide shows the types of emissions standards that will be affecting the future contribution of freight to emissions. In the case of trucking and the diesel engines that power trucks, there has been a lot of progress on the regulatory side. Stringent NOx and PM standards will take affect in 2007. They're both tail pipe and fuel oriented given low sulfur diesel fuel provisions. By 2020 it's expected NOx and PM-10 emission factors will be five to 15 times lower than today's levels. So that is good progress. On the rail side, EPA announced plans for stringent standards similar to those for trucks in the future. Yet, slow fleet turnover has an important ramification in terms of when these types of standards will start to have significant impacts in emissions and air quality at the regional level. On the marine side, the first emissions standards took affect in 2004. EPA announced plans for stringent standards in the future, similar to those of trucks. However, EPA does not have the authority to regulate foreign flagged vessels. They are significant part of the activity that is seen in our ports, and account for a lot of the traffic. The fact that EPA does not have authority to regulate emissions from those vessels is something that needs to be looked into when you're thinking about, for example, the overall effectiveness of emissions reduction strategies relevant to other modes. On the aircraft side, there are some difficult technical tradeoffs between NOx and noise (noise is an important consideration when it comes to air port planning).
This next slide shows, however, that there is going to be significant progress from the perspective of emission rates from the baseline, which was 2002 in the FHWA study. We see some significant decreases in emission rates across all of the modes. By 2020, the emission rates of trucks for instance will have decreased by over 80%--that is important progress.
Although progress is being made to reduce the emissions rates of the vehicles and vessels that transport freight, demand is expected to grow significantly into the future. This slide is based on some projections that ICF made as part of an NCHRP study. They're similar, for instance on the trucking side to what FHWA's freight analysis framework (FAF) projects to 2020. In essence, on a ton-miles basis, we are going to likely see an increase of 60% to 70% in trucking activity between 2000 and 2020. Likewise, freight rail activity is expected to increase by 50%, while barge traffic, which had been decreasing, is also expected to increase in the future. Although air cargo represents a small percentage of over all freight activity, it is expected is expected to double by 2020. When you coupled the significant progress that is going to be made on emission rates, and account for the fact that fleet turnover will affect how quickly we'll be able to see the benefits of regulations, with the significant increases in demand we realize that freight transportation is a really important element of the air quality picture in the future; and will likely grow in importance as transportation agencies develop their plans, programs and look to move forward with freight projects and programs.
Now, one of the things that we wanted to do is to get a sense of how the emissions contribution across modes would be changing over time given the projections of activity as well the effects of regulations on emission rates. This next slide provides our findings on how contributions will change by mode. Today, trucking is a major source of freight NOx emissions, roughly accounting for 67% of the national freight NOx picture. By 2020, however, commercial marine is expected to grow in importance, largely because of the significant progress that is going to be made on the emission rates of diesel trucks side and the fact that emissions from foreign flag vessels are not under the control of EPA. From a regional context, as states grapple with air quality challenges, then look to develop institutional relationships to address them, working with the maritime transportation industry and port authorities will become even more important from the perspective of emissions reduction. The picture is similar on the PM 10 side of things, as shown by the next slide.
As I mentioned earlier, an important objective of the FHWA study was to investigate freight emissions at the regional level. We honed in on six areas, Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, Forth Worth, Detroit, Houston and Los Angeles. The report that will be available from FHWA articulates the rationale for picking these sites, so I won't go through that now. Basically, the work at the regional level entailed an analysis of the freight system of each of the six regions; from both activity and emissions perspectives. To isolate freight emissions, we looked at all of the information available from state implementation plans and the transportation planning processes that are undertaken in these regions.
As shown in the next slide, the freight emissions picture in these regions is somewhat consistent with what we presented at the national level. Across all mobile sources, freight's contribution in these regions ranges from 40% to 52%, which is close to what found at the national level. Across all sources, however, we see a somewhat different picture. Freight's contribution to emissions across all sources ranges from about 29% to 39%, Los Angeles being 39%. So, the picture actually gets a little more interesting at the regional level. Other than in Chicago (which is a major rail hub), freight rail accounts for less than 10% of all freight emissions. As expected, marine NOx emissions are relatively large in regions that have major ports, and on the PM side, you see a similar picture, freight PM 10 emissions in these regions are very important pieces of the puzzle. When it comes to PM 10, trucking is still the largest contributor. Again, in Chicago, because of the importance of the rail activity in that region, freight rail accounts for about 20% of total freight PM 10 emissions, marine contributes about 40% of freight PM 10 emissions in Los Angeles and Houston, where there are large ports.
Now I'm going to talk a little bit about some of the estimation challenges that we found as part of our work. The importance of going through this is to lay the ground work for the types of methodological progressions that are needed to support decision-making on the part of transportation agencies.
On the trucking side, as most of you probably know, MOBILE6 is used widely by practitioners across the country - other than in California where the EMFAC model is used to develop emissions inventories and to evaluate transportation programs and projects, as well as mitigation strategies. MOBILE6 requires vehicle miles traveled by 16 truck classes. Yet, most sources of data available to transportation agencies use one or two truck classes, so there is a reliance on default values. The use of default values is problematic when you start looking at things at a localized level. Likewise, NOx emissions rates vary with speed. Yet, MOBILE6 uses an average speed for each roadway link. Potentially even more significant, the typical analysis process doesn't account for extended truck idling. Idling is an important contributor to the emissions problem and one that can be addressed readily by technology retrofit and operations-oriented mitigation strategies.
In the case of operations-oriented strategies, the effects of congestion on freight emissions are also very difficult to assess given current tools. This issue is actually very important when you start considering the tool box that folks have available to them to reduce emissions from the freight sector, particularly trucking. That tool box is comprised, as I mentioned earlier, of technology oriented and operations oriented strategies, and our ability to better assess the affects of operations oriented strategies in terms of reducing freight emissions needs to improve significantly.
Now I'm going to turn my attention to freight rail and to some of the emissions analysis challenges that we confronted there. First, agencies rely on data provided by the private railroads. Gross ton miles by county or fuel used by county are used. But, the data provided by the railroads may be incomplete or inaccurate, or may not really represent the situation potentially as well as it could. Many railroads can't provide data on switch yard locomotive operations, for instance, so national defaults are commonly used. Moreover, because mostly there is little or no data available from these types of carriers, the emissions from Class II and III railroads are often ignored. On the emissions factors side, significant improvements could be made to get more representative measurements. Overall, there is a lot of work to be done on the freight rail side.
On the maritime side, we found many regions obtain data on fuel sales by county and assume that fuel sales are representative of activity, which isn't necessarily true for ocean-going vessels that may buy fuel anywhere. The development of port emissions estimates is time consuming, but some ports have done an admirable job. For example, ports in Los Angeles, Long Beach, New Jersey and Portland have come up with a marine freight emissions estimation process that is more robust than what would you see in other parts of the country. But in doing so, it's pretty clear that a sophisticated approach requires a lot of data to improve estimates of activity and to develop reliable emission factors. One thing to note is that emissions from port cargo handling equipment are important, but often ignored. State implementation plans lump this source in with other non-road equipment.
Air cargo, as I mentioned earlier is a relatively smaller piece of the puzzle. What we found is that in order to estimate the emissions of air cargo activities, FAA's emissions modeling system is often used. As we discussed it's difficult to separate air passenger and freight activity and that poses a significant challenge when you think about the fact that passenger planes carry a third of air freight ton miles in their bellies. Then, as with ports, airport ground support equipment is often not considered as effectively as it should be.
Where does this all leave? I'm going to turn to some of the strategies that may be available for reducing freight fuel use and emissions. We talked about some of the challenges, but there are mitigation options that are very important to consider, if you're sitting on the side of a transportation agency that has operational responsibilities for instance. I mentioned earlier there is a significant amount of work being done on technology oriented approaches, so I'm not going to go over those -- mostly because given most of the people probably on the phone are representatives from state DOTs and other transportation agencies. I figured it would be more important to talk about the operations oriented strategize listed in this slide. On the trucking side, and we'll hear more from Mike Zatz about when he presents EPA's SmartWay program, the operational strategy that can produce significant benefits quickly is reducing overnight idling (or reducing idling in general). There are a number of both technological and operational options available to reduce idling. Port access improvements and reductions in empty mileage can also reduce emissions from freight activities. Likewise, in rail, there are some switch yard idling opportunities, as well as double tracking and train clearance improvements -- approaches to smoothen flow. The elimination of some routings could also be considered as emissions reduction strategies. You find similar types of operations oriented strategies for reducing freight fuel use, which is important when considering the contribution of greenhouse gases to climate change.
In conclusion, freight of transportation is a major source of national and regional NOx and PM 10 emissions. There is a lot to be done. It's an important element that requires significant attention, especially given the growing focus of freight in transportation planning, programming and project development. There is a significant need to improve emission inventory processes. And as I alluded to, there are opportunities on the operations side that aren't yet really that well understood and not captured properly in the tools for estimating emissions. I think there is potentially a lot of work to be done in that area so that we get a better understanding of what we're dealing with and how to reduce the contribution of freight to emissions.
Now, as I close, I wanted to point out some the other environmental impacts that are relevant to freight projects. I think this is very important from the NEPA side. The first is community liveability and environmental justice. The fact is that many freight facilities are situated near minority or economically disadvantaged communities. As we're thinking about freight improvement projects, for instance, we need to account for environmental justice considerations and community cohesiveness types of issues. Note that there is a significant push on the part of both industry and some researchers towards things like city logistics or freight villages. Freight villages and the relationship between them to community cohesiveness and liveability will become an important issue in the future. For example, the location of freight villages outside of city centers could lead to more sprawl. Second, indirect impacts have been a major point of contention in many of our highway EISs of the recent past. In addition, noise, hazardous waste and hazardous materials are examples of the types of environmental issues that could face freight projects, as are invasive species. But we'll not get into those in detail.
So, what do we need to do moving forward? We have to increase the likelihood that transportation plans conform with air quality plans, and in order to do that we have to take freight into consideration in a proactive and organized fashion. We have to increase the awareness and effectiveness of strategies on the operations side. We have to invest in and expand the use of tools and models for impact assessment and mitigation evaluation. In essence, we need better data and we need to not so much rely on the modeling regimes that have been developed for us thus far, but really understand what those models tell us. Doing so, hopefully, will allow us to streamline the delivery of needed projects - certainly their environmental review. Given the significant increases in demand, and the strain that such increases will impose on the performance of the freight system, improving our understanding of how freight transportation affects air quality should be a priority. I would be happy to answer any questions after Mike's presentation.
J. Seplow:
Yes, sounds good, thank you, Sergio. Again, I do want to encourage everybody out there if you do think of questions to type them in the chat area of the screen, if you could indicate which presenter the question is for, and also make sure you send it out to all participants. Let's move on to Mike Zatz of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Mike, just a moment, I'll get you set up okay.
Mike Zatz:
I have to apologize to Sergio. One of my colleagues came by and was fascinated by how this works. I thought we were on listening mode, but maybe not the presenters. I wanted to thank everybody for taking the time out to attend this afternoon, and I'm especially happy to be here with Sergio who is a former colleague of mine for those that heard the introduction. What I wanted to talk about today was the SmartWay Transport Partnership. Sergio set it up very nicely in talking about the contributions of the various modes of the freight industry to air emissions. Mostly what I'm going to talk about today is the trucking side, which is what SmartWay has focused on. I'll mention a little bit of what we're doing in other modes. Three things summarize what SmartWay is meant to do, what companies do, and why they join -- they're looking to save fuel, save money and be able to clean the air at the same time. I would like to lead off with a number of quotes. I wanted to highlight the first two here. These are quotes from various partners -- the companies that participate in the program. The first one we're very proud of. It came to us in a letter from a medium-sized trucking company. SmartWay has been designed to really focus on making the business case to the companies and to encourage them to reduce their fuel consummation and emissions. We try to present a win-win situation. The second quote here from Swift Transportation, which is one of the largest trucking companies in the country, really sums it up. He told his peers at the launch of SmartWay that the very worst thing that will happen to them if they join and take advantage is that they're going to save money. We like to just highlight those to give people a sense of what SmartWay is all about. There are other quotes here from other companies that are participating with us -- more about how this fits within their environmental initiatives. Just a quick overview of how it came about, SmartWay was launched a little over a year ago in February, 2004 at the American Trucking Associations' Winter Leadership meeting. There are three key components to SmartWay. The first is a Corporate Partnership. That is what I'm going to mostly talk about today. It is the program where carriers and shippers work to reduce fuel consumption and emissions. Second is the National Transportation Idle-Free Corridors. This is a part of SmartWay dedicated only to idling and looking at ways to reduce unnecessary idling, and I'll have a little bit on that later. The third is rail and intermodal, which is under development. We're getting set to launch SmartWay Rail at the end of May at the annual awards for environmental excellence in the rail industry. Now I'll talk about the voluntary partnership portion of SmartWay, what it is, how it works, and what we're getting out of it. This is a voluntary partnership. It's designed to complement EPA's regulatory activities, which most people are aware of. SmartWay was developed over a period of about two years leading up to the launch in February, 2004. It was developed jointly by EPA and a forum of carriers and shippers. Some are mentioned here. The American Trucking Associations was a key partner in the development of SmartWay. During the discussions about what it would address, what we noticed was that there were differing interests. The freight industry came into this, primarily interested in reducing fuel consumption -- that is their primary goal here. Second to labor, fuel is their biggest cost. They were also very interested in public recognition and improved public image. ATA was concerned with that. They noted the trucking industry is generally seen as dirty and unsafe and they feel that that is not the case. They were hoping active participation would help to demonstrate their commitment to improving the environment. EPA's interest was reduced emissions and this program looks at CO2, NOx, and PM. We're also interested in improved energy security that comes with reducing the amount of oil that we use. We have been working closely with state trucking associations, in particular, since right after the launch of the program to get the word out to trucking companies -- to reach out to them. We've had a very good partnership with a number of state trucking associations, and some of the most active ones include Minnesota, New Jersey, Montana, and Kentucky. We're working with a couple dozen state trucking associations now, to try to get the word out to their members about SmartWay and encourage them to join. This slide shows you the logos, many of which are recognizable to most people, of our charter partners, which are the companies that helped us design SmartWay. We were especially happy that Wal-Mart and Tyson both joined together at the same time in October -- that was a very big achievement for us. This slide just shows you logos of our partners, this has 126 on it as of April 4. Just in the last couple weeks we added seven new partners. You can see the activity of the state trucking associations in here by looking at Minnesota, where you'll see we have about 13 partners, or roughly 10% of the partners. This is not something you might expect thinking about Minnesota and trucking, but it just shows that the active participation of the state trucking association helps to get fleets involved. It's going to help the people in Minnesota, and New Jersey as well, since we see six or seven partners there. That is growing, also. How does the partnership work? As I mentioned it is for both carriers and shippers. Carriers, it's probably fairly obvious, are the trucking companies. They agree to work over a period of three years to reduce their fuel consumption. They do that through a lot of different methods that I'm going to go over in just a moment. Shippers hire carriers to transport goods for them. These are companies like Nike, Home Depot, and other big retailers. What they agreed to do once they sign up and join the partnership is work towards shipping more product with SmartWay carriers. They commit to working over a three-year period to get to a point where they ship 50% of their product using only SmartWay carriers. We ask shippers to take a look at their own operations as well, and see if there are things they can do themselves to reduce emissions by looking at things like cranes, fork lifts, loaders and also what's happening at their loading docks. How can carriers achieve the savings that they're shooting for and meet their goals? There are a lot of different methods. Idle reduction is the holy grail here -- the biggest one. It's something everybody can address, and there are a lot of different ways to do it. I'll show you pictures of a few here. Some people will be familiar and some will not, but this is the scene you might see at a typical truck stop. The trucks park for the drivers to rest or sleep, and this goes on for eight hours now, maybe 10 hours. And that is the typical scenario. One method of reducing idling, keeping in mind that EPA doesn't endorse any one method over another, is addition of these devices for trucks -- truck stop electrification. There are a number of ways to accomplish it. Some are simple plug-ins. And these devices here actually provide heating, cooling, satellite TV, internet access, telephone and a number of other benefits. Drivers pay by the hour, and the rate runs about $1.50 an hour. When you consider that while idling they're burning fuel, it ends up cheaper for them. Many of the drivers really like this, but the problem is that it is not available in very many places. I'll talk about what EPA is doing in this regard later. Another method for reducing idling in a similar way -- allowing truck drivers to turn of engines while they sleep -- is through on-board strategies. On the left here are simple direct-fired heaters, and on the right is an auxiliary power unit, providing heating and air conditioning. All of these have different characteristics. We're informing companies about this and encouraging them to take a look and figure out what may be right for their fleet and operations. There is no one solution for everybody. Another thing that really has been known to reduce fuel consumption is something called single wide tires. This might be a typical tire configuration for tractors. Single wide tires replace every set of two tires with a single one. The only place it does not work is on the front of the tractor. But what you would be doing is eliminating eight tires from the mix here. By going to single wide, you're reducing rolling resistance of the tires, and there is a slight aerodynamic benefit to it as well, but it's very small. Improved aerodynamics. Most people are familiar with the aerodynamics of the tractors and the devices they have on it that have been developed over recent years. One place people haven't looked is to the trailers. There is quite a bit that could be done. I have a couple of pictures -- this is the typical tractor-trailer configuration. You can see, the tractor looks streamlined, but the trailer is still just a big box. If you look where the white arrows are in this picture, the next will show you a few additions. Gap fairings, reducing the gap between the tractor and the trailer. The tractor here as extenders going back from the tractor to further close the gap. The belly fairing underneath. The next picture shows a better version of that. The next two slides show another tractor-trailer and a different version of trailer aerodynamics on the tail -- this is an inflatable device. You have to deflate it and take it off to get in the doors. The previous version here, the rear fairing is a new design by another company where you don't need to take it off as you open the doors, they just collapse. There has been an increasing interest in these types of devices. There are also a number of other things we encourage people to take a look at. Driver training is a very big one, and often low cost. Things like progressive shifting, and simply instructing drivers to turn off the engine and not idle. Many drivers are creatures of habit, and they're used to idling. Improved freight logistics is one way to reduce the amount of idling that goes on also. Automatic tire inflation systems. Reducing highway speed. And intermodal shipping is something we're interested in through this program since rail shipping is so much more efficient than trucking in terms of emissions. So, our carrier partners take a look at these things. We encourage them to look at them, consider them, and figure out what is going to be best for them. We provide them with a way to evaluate these things, and that is what we call the FLEET model. There are two versions-- a carrier version and a shipper version, that are big spread sheet models. Our partners fill in the carrier version with their baseline data, the operation of their fleet today, giving us information on how many trucks they have, model years, how many miles they drive on average per year, how much fuel they use, and then, devices on the truck. They tell us about the aerodynamics on the trucks, idling reduction programs they have in place, and technologies they use. What we do is use the model to calculate their environmental foot print. It shows them their CO2, NOx, and PM emissions. And we then ask them to take that baseline and project it three years into the future. They set a goal for what they want to be doing and accomplishing in the next three years. We ask them to modify numbers and add trucks if they think they're going to expand. Also, take a look at adding aerodynamics or single wide tires, or something else to reduce their fuel usage and emissions. Based on the data they have in the model on their operations, it will allow them to calculate payback periods and come up with what makes sense for their business. That is something partners tell us they enjoy and are getting a lot out of. They indicate that they have not been able to sit down and compare different things in the past, and most of them are surprised to see how much fuel they're saving through the different things they have on trucks right now. That is helping in terms of education. The shippers don't own trucks. In their model they list each carrier and how much freight they ship with each carrier. Most of them use weight or miles as a metric. The model converts their data and weights it, and then calculates a SmartWay score for them as well. The use of SmartWay carriers is rated higher than the use of nonSmartWay carriers. Then, we ask them to project three years in the future and show us what is going to change to increase their use of SmartWay carriers. A lot of people ask us, especially companies thinking about joining, what's in it for them? Of course, carriers save money by saving fuel, and that is what people are very excited about. However, there is also a public relations-type component there, which is the SmartWay logo. If partners meet predetermined criteria, they qualify to use the logo. Most people are probably familiar with Energy Star. SmartWay was designed based on the Energy Star model, and we hope it will become the Energy Star of freight transportation, where people will know that partner companies are implementing cleaner freight transportation. So the logo for now can be used on corporate and business-to-business materials to indicate that the company is employing cleaner transportation. We're also initiating pilot projects with FedEx and UPS to look at them putting the logo on the boxes we all use every day. Part of the public relations effort is also getting awareness out to the public, and to that end we launched a PSA campaign in December. We have placements showing up now in trade journals like Fleet Owner and Transport Topics and others, and also making their way into the mainstream media. We have a full page placement in the current [April 25, 2005] issue of Forbes magazine, which happens to have a cover story about hydrogen vehicles, and also in the current version of Business Week in a few markets in California and New York. Word is starting to get out, and we're looking to expand this campaign. We have five ads with similar messages but a different look. Here is an example of two of them. Now I'll talk for a minute or two about our idling program, which is the National Transportation Idle-Free Corridors program. We've initiated 52 projects in 17 states, and many have focused on truck stop electrification. We gave out over $1 million in grants to fund the installation of a thousand new electrified parking spaces at truck stops in nine states. We were also excited to receive a congressional earmark this year for $5 million to promote deployment of idle reduction technologies. . This map shows the location of our projects, and I'll skip past that quickly. This next slide is a summary of where we are a year after the launch, with 107 carriers, 20 shippers, and six shipper-carriers -- those are companies like Wal-Mart; they hire carriers to ship for them. We've got a lot of the big ones. If you take a look at the Transport Topics Top 20 list, it is a publication of the American Trucking Associations, we have 9 of the Top 20 for-hire carriers. In total our partners account for well over 250,000 tractors traveling over 14 billion miles a year. So that is a really good start -- we're near about 5% of the industry in one year, and we're very excited about that. We're growing all the time, and in terms of shippers, some are starting to incorporate SmartWay participation into the hiring and contract bidding process. Most exciting is that IKEA North America recently announced that in order to carry product for IKEA in North America you must be a SmartWay carrier, and that includes Mexico. Carrier partners are interested in putting the SmartWay logo on their trucks, which creates a little bit of an issue for us in that we can't have a truck going down the road with a logo, and maybe it had a malfunction and is belching black smoke. What we're doing is trying to come up with criteria that will allow us to put the logo on trucks that are low emissions and high fuel efficiency trucks. Lastly, we're attempting to develop guidance for states to use in their development of SIPs, to quantify and use emission reductions from long-haul trucks. That is at the very early stages of development. In the coming year, we're also going through the process of continuing development of a technology verification program. We hope to ultimately have a test procedure where vendors can test technologies using our protocol, and partners and others can know these are verified technologies. And also in the next year we're going to be launching the partnership into new categories including rail, which I mentioned before. We're going to be signing up affiliates, groups like state trucking associations and others who help us to promote the program. Truck parking locations like truck stops and others, they will be joining by agreeing to set aside a certain number of spaces as no-idle zones. And logistics companies are starting to join already, which is going to help us very much as we also are moving into ports. This is something that will take more time to develop, though. So I'm going to conclude with a highlight of idling programs. The first is the $5 million earmark we've received that is going to be used for three projects. The first one is a small trucking company grant program. We're going to subsidize the purchase of technologies like APUs for small trucking companies. The second is a truck fleet technology vendor program. We're going to work with the truck OEMs to design a template that will allow companies to install power units on their own in a shorter amount of time. Installation takes trucks out of revenue service, and this will allow them to do installation in less than a day. Finally our ports, borders, terminals and truck stop program will look at reducing idling at these facilities. The Request for Applications was supposed to be out today, but it's been delayed slightly. I was told we hope it will be out tomorrow, though we can't be sure, but in the near future it will be hitting the streets. And the last thing, which is something I think will be of great interest to the states, is our development of a model state idling regulation. How this came about is that we had heard that about half of the states have some form of an idling regulation, and while some states have had these on the books for many years and never enforced them, all of a sudden they are now being enforced. To address this we've decided to put together a model regulation that states could use if they wish to adopt idling regulations or if they're looking to reevaluate their regulations. We're not looking at doing a national regulation. We're just saying that if they're interested, we'll have a model we recommend they use to be most effective. What we're going to do to accomplish this is bring together state environmental agencies, trucking associations, and trucking companies for roundtable discussions. These will be small meetings, 15-20 people, to get to the heart of the matter and discuss details. We're going to attempt to reach consensus on things like time limits, how enforcement should be done, what penalties should be, etc. We're going to hold five workshops from May to July, with the first one in Baltimore on May 6. We're then hoping to issue a model by late summer. We're happy to say that a number of states indicated they're going to hold off on development of regulations or on their review of existing ones until this effort is finished, which is what we were hoping for. That is basically it, and I'll end there. That is an overview of what SmartWay is all about, and I guess I'll just turn it back over. Thanks.
J. Seplow:
Thank you, Mike. I'll go ahead and leave this slide up on the screen so everybody can copy down information. We're going to start the question and answer session. I'm going to start questions typed in the chat area. Mike since you finished we'll go ahead and start with questions for you. First question is just kind of following up on what you closed with, do you plan to offer the grant program in future years, too?
M. Zatz:
To the extent we have the funds to do it, absolutely. This year, we were able to do it because we received this fairly large earmark. We hope that similar funds will be available in the future. If they are, we'll be going ahead to do things like that.
J. Seplow:
Okay. And with regards to the idling reduction grant is an 80-20 split? Do carriers need a governmental sponsor?
M. Zatz:
These will be small business grants, but unfortunately now I can't say what it's going to be. What we're going to be doing is putting out this RFA looking for an entity to design and run this program for us. So we have not decided what those breakdowns will be; 80-20 or 50-50 or what.
J. Seplow:
Do the carriers need a governmental sponsor?
M. Zatz:
No. This RFA is going to be open to nonprofit-type organizations to run this program for us. And no, each individual company does not need a sponsor.
J. Seplow:
Are there any coordination efforts between EPA SmartWay and the clean cities programs?
M. Zatz:
We do work some with Clean Cities and participated in a number of Clean Cities workshops.
J. Seplow:
Thank you. Next question is what happens after smart way participants participated for the three-year period? How does EPA monitor and ensure continuity of the program? Are there incentives provided?
M. Zatz:
Okay. I'll answer the last one first. Incentives are, like I said, largely the benefits of saving money for the trucking companies. For shippers, like Nike and IKEA and Home Depot, it's the public relations side of things. If they can qualify for the logo, they can let the public know that their products are shipped to the store with cleaner transportation. In addition, there's the computer tool I mentioned, and when they join we assign one of our staff to work with them so they have the benefit of our help. What is going to happen after three years is a great question, and we're thinking about that right now, but we don't yet have an answer. It's something we're looking at. We envision the program will continue, but it could look a little bit different, depending on how many partners we have. It will also depend on how many partners have achieved their goals already, and we may ask them to accomplish more. So, it's something I don't have an answer to right now, but is something we're thinking about now that we have two years still to go on that. Then, the second part of the question was about monitoring?
J. Seplow:
How does EPA monitor and ensure continuity of the program?
M. Zatz:
Yes. We're working closely with partners all the time. They are required to do two things once they sign up. Three things actually. Give us baseline data, an action plan using the FLEET model, and then, we do require annual reports from them so we can see what they've done in the past year. We aren't going to be verifying it, since this is a voluntary program. But, we're going to have an awards program and we'll likely be doing more verification for anybody that would win those awards.
J. Seplow:
Thank you. The next question is are carrier freight modules scenario spread sheets available for down load?
M. Zatz:
If they're talking about the FLEET model, yes. If you go to our web site, which is on the screen here now, you can find the FLEET model in there if you go to the partner section. The carrier one is a very big Excel spreadsheet. It's a bit scary looking, but what we do is we call them up and we walk them through and give them a tutorial. It takes about 20 minutes.
J. Seplow:
Okay. Next question is does the single wide tire lower the contact area of the tire? If so, the PM 0 and PM 2.5 could be lowered by particle matter thrown from the tires.
M. Zatz:
The surface area that hits the road is lower, and rolling resistance is lower. We -- I don't believe -- looked into the matter from the tire itself. But it's an interesting comment. It's something I can pas on to our technology team which is looking at the impacts of tires. We just completed some testing of single wide tires in terms of fuel economy and had good results but, like I said, we haven't addressed this issue.
J. Seplow:
Thank you. And we're now going to move on to some questions for Sergio. I know that you typed in comments in the chat area. I'm going to ask questions that way, you can expand on comments and people have called in but aren't on the web site with hear as well. The first question is you mentioned that impacts of operational strategize are not well understood. Are there any examples of a region that has done a decent job quantifying emission benefits?
S. Ostria:
Yeah. I think in general, operations oriented strategies have been looked at, I think closely often under the umbrella of congestion management. We didn't conduct a broad assessment across a large amount of regions but it's likely there isn't that much there. And on the emission affects of freight oriented strategies, that -- other than things that have been done on the idling side, which there is a body of literature associated with that. And obviously the importance of that is to be noted. But I think there more work to be done. More conventional operations strategies that look at smoothing traffic flow, speed and parking restrictions. And that type of stuff.
J. Seplow:
Thank you. Next question is the international maritime organization has a treaty going into effect that regulates ship emissions, 15 countries control over a half of the world shipping fleet have approved their participation in the treaty. Does the U.S. government have any plans to sign this treaty?
S. Ostria:
The U.S. has not ratified Marpol annex 6 which is what is relevant here. If it does, then that -- that can be enforced against basically any foreign flag ship that visits a U.S. port, whether or not the state of that ship, the flag that have ship has ratified the treaty. But until that happens, only a small fraction of what is called category three marine diesel engines that are operating in U.S. waters are subject today to emissions regulations. The U.S. Senate has a decision in front of them.
J. Seplow:
I should mention there was a mini discussion going on in the chat area that began with a question we don't allow substandard aircraft into the air ports so why can't we regulate ships into ports?
S. Ostria:
We found this also doing work allowing Mexico truckers to operate beyond commercial zones. And the issue is that because that is required by NAFTA, trade treaties are under the executive branch, I guess the President of the United States. So EPA didn't have the authority to regulate those trucks. Nor do they regulate the ones coming from Canada. It's kind of parallel to that. When you're talking about trade. The political process, I think is a little different.
J. Seplow:
Thank you. jumping back to you, Mike, another question for you in the meantime. Question is if the tire contact with the pavement is lessened, that translates into more damage from the roadway from single tires as opposed -- if the tire contact with the pavement is lessen that had translates into more damage to the roadway from single tires as opposed to the current configurations. As EPA done research open the costs for the highways as a result of using single wide tires? Mike? Your phone might be on mute.
M. Zatz:
It was on mute, thank you. A good question, and I was typing a response. I'll still send it in just a moment. That is absolutely true. We believe that the increased pressure on each tire, and then on the pavement could result in some additional damage to the roadway. We haven't done any research that I know of, but we have been talking with Federal Highway about this issue. It came up last week in a meeting and we'll be continuing those discussions to look into this. In fact, I believe Canada does not allow single wide tires to be used for this reason. We haven't been able to find research done to show what the impacts are. It definitely is an important point and something we're looking into.
J. Seplow:
Thank you. Go going back to Sergio. During the presentation you talked about a tool box that uses operations and technology strategies to reduce emissions. Can you elaborate? Is it available to everyone?
S. Ostria:
Well, my -- I refer to a tool box from a conceptual perspective. I think that is something that could be developed in a more formal way down the road. The report that will be coming out chapter four talks about emissions mitigation strategies, going through some details technology oriented strategies and operations oriented strategies. And retro fit, repair, rebuild types of things. On the operations side we discussed a little bit and they're really, I think, at this stage, mostly you know a laundry list of the types of thing that's could be done with an assessment of whatever may be available. And as we move forward, I think we need to move toward that tool box that provides more concrete information on not only implementation considerations about awe long the lines of operational strategies but on very concrete information on -- of the types of reduction potential attributable due to an approach. The development is a worth while activity.
J. Seplow:
Okay, thank you. At this point we don't have anymore questions typed into the chat area. But we do have a few more minutes. We can open up the phone lines and see if anybody has questions over the phone.
Operator:
Ladies and gentlemen if you would like to ask a question please press star followed by one on the touch tone telephone if your question has been answered or would like to withdraw press star followed by two. Questions taken in the order they are received. We'll wait a minute for a list to compile. Okay. Ma'am at this time we have no audio questions.
J. Seplow:
Thank you. Before we close, then, I'll give you a chance with closing thoughts. Sergio did you have anything else you wanted to add?
S. Ostria:
I wanted to note the report I referenced, the final version was delivered in April. The person may want to contact to ask questions or get a copy. Her name is Diane Turchetta.
J. Seplow:
Mike was there anything you wanted to add?
M. Zatz:
No. Thanks for joining us and I encourage anybody who is interested in investigating how their organization might be able to work with SmartWay to get in touch with me. We're always looking for new partners, and in particular, also organizations interested in the idling work shops we're going to be putting together. Thank you.
J. Seplow:
Well, thank you to both of you and thank you everybody who attended today. As I mentioned before, this event was recorded and the recording will be available within the next week on talking freight web site. The power point presentations will be available and I will be sending out an E mail to let you know when everything is available. The next seminar will be held May 18th will focus on context sensitive design. I encourage to you visit the talking freight web site and sign up for this seminar as well as the June seminar, which is posted as well. We'll be posting the seminars for the remainder of the year shortly. I also encourage you to join the freight planning LISTSERV. Thank you. Enjoy the rest of the day.
