Canadian Trucking Alliance Outlines Clean-Air Plan

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he Canadian Trucking Alliance unveiled a plan to reduce polluting emissions in the freight transportation sector that calls for use of various technologies to help trucks reduce emissions.

The proposed measures, outlined in CTA's “Trucking and a Made-in-Canada Clean Air Act” released late last week, would have the equivalent impact of removing more than 200,000 heavy trucks from Canadian roads, the trucking group said.

The 14-point plan includes such measures as installing more auxiliary power units to reduce truck idling and increasing the use of new single, wide-base tires which CTA said would significantly improve fuel economy.

It calls on Canadian transportation ministers to endorse CTA’s proposal to require that speed limiters on all trucks to be activated and set at no more than 105 km/h — about 65 mph — a measure recently included in proposals in the provinces of Quebec and Ontario. (Click here for previous coverage.)

Use starting this fall of ultra-low-sulfur diesel fuel also will lower emissions of particulate matter from truck exhaust, as the fuel has a maximum 15 parts per million sulfur, from the current 500 ppm maximum, CTA said.

“Trucking is the dominant mode of freight transportation in Canada and will continue to be so. As such we have a major role to play in enduring that air pollution and [greenhouse gas] emissions are minimized,” said David Bradley, CTA’s chief executive officer.