No Outlet at Truck Stops
 TT Photo |
If electrical outlets for trucks were installed at travel plazas, drivers could plug in like airplanes do between flights, like emergency vehicles do while awaiting to be dispatched or like the family Winnebago at a KOA campground. Long-haul truckers could run their microwave ovens, refrigerators, televisions and laptop computers without idling their engines.
Less idling would cut fuel costs and engine wear, the reasoning goes, with the added benefit of less diesel smoke in the air around truck stops.
The trouble is — truck stop electrification doesn’t exist.
“To me, it seems like a no-brainer,” he said. “Why wouldn’t you want AC power for truck cabs if you could get it?”
Baron’s organization, formed in 1997, says it exists “for the sole purpose of building momentum toward the electrification of truck stops throughout North America.”
It’s a lofty goal, but one whose time has come, according to alliance members, which include Trace Engineering of Arlington, Wash.; Phillips & Temro, a truck block maker inEden Prairie, Minn.; and Edison Institute, a trade organization representing shareholder-owned utilities in Washington, D.C.
T-SEA’s notion of placing electrical outlets at travel plazas is not a new one.
This is something we’ve been working on for years,” said Rick Tempchin, director of electric transportation at Edison Institute.
In 1993 and 1994, Edison did research on the benefits of the electrification. For one reason or another, the project never left the ground. When all the evidence is considered, it’s not easy to tell why.
Edison says the project would help trucking achieve as much as $2.5 billion in savings, based on reduced engine wear and fuel costs. One year of idling does as much damage to a truck engine as 200,000 highway driving miles, according to Edison, which adds that a year of idling also wastes 3,750 gallons of diesel fuel — 1.5 gallons an hour.
With an annual price tag of $7,000 for each truck idling, the logical thing to do would be to reduce or eliminate the practice. But that’s not so easy.
So what seems to be the holdup?
“Right now it’s the chicken or the egg problem,” Tempchin said. “We don’t have the trucks with the equipment installed in them, nor do we have the capability to plug in at a truck stop.”
Until now.
What has changed, Tempchin said, is that Volvo now offers a “shore package” option on its model 770 sleeper unit, which includes AC outlets in the cab. The package lets drivers use many household appliances inside their truck cabs. Currently, the shore package is used only when a truck is parked.
“What we see now is that it is so successful, that we are going to provide that feature on our other sleepers as well,” said Marc F. Gustafson, president of Volvo Trucks North America in Greensboro, N.C.
For the full story, see the April 5 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.
