Trucks at Work Blog

“If we’re going to change dramatically the way we spend transportation dollars, let’s do it right.” –Brian Imus, director of the Illinois Public Interest Research Group, from an interview with the Chicago Sun Times

For a moment there, transportation infrastructure issues seemed to be finally getting some long overdue recognition at the federal level. With the Highway Trust Fund now poised to run out of money for the second time in less than a year – it’ll be empty by the end of August – everyone seemed to finally realize that transportation infrastructure not only costs money (and BIG money at that) but we can’t just keep applying the equivalent of fiscal band aids to keep it working efficiently.

And then …

President Obama’s administration quickly applied the brakes to U.S. House Transportation Chairman Jim Oberstar’s (D-Minn.) ambitious – maybe overambitious – effort to hammer out a $450 billion, six-year surface transportation authorization act by Sept. 30. Instead, the White House is seeking an 18 month delay in that reauthorization effort and is now scavenging about for $20 billion in stopgap funding to keep transportation projects moving along in the interim.

This merely puts off making decisions about that most fundamental and overarching issue in transportation right now: money. Yes, it all comes back to that lovely green paper emblazoned with the faces of past presidents, now doesn’t it? We simply don’t have nearly enough money to cover the true cost of transportation needs for many reasons, but here are a few key ones: 1. Government tax revenues earmarked for transportation are too low and 2. Many states take funds meant for highways and spend it elsewhere, like on building bicycle paths.

So what it transportation now requires is a new direction – a way to generate dedicated revenues sufficient to maintain current infrastructure while expanding where needed.

“This challenge is of vital national importance. It is in the interest of us all to take on the challenge as vigorously and effectively as we can,” said Deb Miller, secretary of the Kansas Department of Transportation and chairwoman of the standing committee on planning for the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), in recent testimony on Capitol Hill. “To provide the revenues needed, Congress will need to utilize a diversified portfolio of revenue options.”

To be sure, a lot of transportation funding mechanisms have been discussed in this space. But I’d like to share Miller’s perspective on this critical issue, if only to illustrate how funding decisions – and the lack of them – literally affects what’s happening on the ground. Here’s what Miller thinks are the critical short term problems:

First, there’s short-term Highway Trust Fund insolvency to deal with. Spending from the Highway Trust Fund is exceeding revenues. Last September, Congress transferred $8 billion back into the Trust Fund from the General Fund to enable U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to honor the commitments made to states in SAFETEALU. However, as revenue continues to lag expenditures, the $8 billion may not sustain the program through September, 30. Interim relief may be required as early as July. “We must also ask what happens in Fiscal Year 2010 if more time is needed to complete a new authorization,” Miller said in her testimony. “Interim funding should be provided in the second quarter of this year to assure that there is no interruption in the highway program in either FY 2009 or FY 2010.”

Second, the feds must cancel $8.7 billion worth of “rescissions.” On September 30, unless Congress acts, $8.7 billion of contract authority will be rescinded from the highway program. That will be on top of almost $20 billion in rescissions since 2002. “We have now reached the point that these rescissions will result in the cancellation of vital projects across the country by a similar amount,” she noted. “Cancellation of this $8.7 billion rescission must take place prior to September, 30, or we will effectively wipe out the benefits of approximately one third of the $27.5 billion in highway funding provided in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.”

Third, highway and transit program contract authority must be sustained. Turning to the upcoming authorization, the Congress has the benefit of two years of research that produced well-documented reports on the nation’s highway and transit investment needs, said Miller. “SAFETEA-LU established two national commissions to study the future of the highway and transit programs. Their reports are now in,” she pointed out. “The National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission said that the nation needs to invest $225 billion per year through 2050 to meet highway, transit and passenger rail needs. The U.S. is currently investing at only 40% of this amount. The National Transportation Infrastructure Finance Commission this February put future highway and transit needs at $200 billion per year. Those highly regarded commissions have clearly outlined for Congress the scale of the investment needed for the country’s future.”

Once those issues are addressed, mid-term funding strategies must be formed – for the next six years or so will be critical, Miller believes.

Sustaining current highway and transit programs. Revenues are flowing into the Highway Trust Fund at a rate billions of dollars below the current rate of obligations for future spending. Come October 1, unless Congress closes this gap, the highway program will face a cutback of $20 billion or more for FY 2010. The transit program will face similar drastic reductions one year later in FY 2011. “Just when the economic recovery program is in the midst of creating thousands of jobs through highway and transit investments, the bottom will drop out from under the core highway and transit programs and thousands of workers will have to be laid off,” she explained. “No matter what, it is vital at a minimum to sustain the current highway and transit programs at not less than their current levels of funding.

Meeting skyrocketing construction costs. In reality, the current levels of funding are far from what they used to be and what they used to buy [and no truer words have been spoken by a government official in a long while.] In addition to years of steady growth in inflation, from 2004 to 2008 construction prices soared for steel, concrete, asphalt and construction machinery, Miller noted. “It is estimated that between 1993, when federal fuel taxes were last adjusted, and 2015, construction costs will have increased by more than 80%. To restore the purchasing power of the program to that of 1993, federal highway funding will have to be increased from $43 billion in 2009 to $75 billion by 2015, and federal transit funding would have to be increased from $10.3 billion in 2009 to $18.5 billion in 2015.”

Address freight funding needs. Miller also thinks the U.S. is entering the early stages of a freight transportation capacity crisis. “Highways, railroads, ports, waterways, and airports all require investment well beyond current levels to keep our freight system competitive,” she said. “We must invest in a ‘national freight system’ that connects all sectors of the economy, all regions of the country, to national and international markets.”

So, how do we get all of this done? More importantly, what is the estimated price tag? This is what Miller thinks:

Over $545 billion in funding needed. Based on these considerations, in order to sustain the federal highway and transit programs, restore their purchasing power, and begin needed investment, Congress should:

• Fund the federal highway program at $375 billion between 2010 and 2015, with the annual program funding level reaching $75 billion by 2015.

• Fund the federal transit program at $93 billion between 2010 and 2015, with the annual program funding level reaching $18.5 billion by 2015.

• Fund the freight program at $42 billion between 2010 and 2015, from resources outside the Highway Trust Fund.

• Fund intercity passenger rail program at $35 billion between 2010 and 2015, from resources outside the Highway Trust Fund. [Note: I highlighted the word “outside” here – about time highway taxes funded roads and ONLY roads for a change.]

How to provide the revenues needed. To provide the revenues needed, Miller believes Congress must use a diversified portfolio of revenue options:

• Congress should maintain at least the current federal share (45%) of total capital investment in the highway and transit and state and local governments must maintain their investment levels as well.

• Congress should eliminate earmarking or reduce it to no more than 5% of the total program.

• Congress should grant states maximum access and flexibility to use a mix of funding and financing tools including use of public-private partnership opportunities.

All of this is a lot to chew on no doubt – and just looking at all the billions mentioned in Miller’s testimony is staggering, to say the least, faced as we are with federal deficits piling up red ink as far as the eye can see. It certainly isn’t going to be easy to get all the fiscal ducks lined up for transportation infrastructure needs. We’ll just have to wait and see what comes to fruition.

“The next decade needs R&D programs to decrease medium- and heavy-duty truck petroleum fuel consumption.” – from the testimony of John Johnson, professor of mechanical engineering at Michigan Technological University before the U.S. House Subcommittee on Energy & Environment of the Committee on Science & Technology

We all want commercial trucks large and small to get better fuel economy; that’s a given no matter what your economic, environmental or political philosophies are. Using less fuel means spending less money on a day to day basis for every truck owner out there, while simultaneously emitting less pollution. To use a very overworked cliché, that’s a “win-win” for almost every political point of view, from die-hard conservative to left-wing liberal.

Yet to achieve the technological breakthroughs necessary to improve fuel economy requires that single, all-important ingredient that tends to ignite a wide variety of volatile political fuses: money. Especially in this day and age, with federal deficits ballooning to frightening heights, it’s even harder to hold out the research and development (R&D) hat to gain the necessary funding.

So one must ask the fundamental question: is funding such R&D worth the money? Can government research dollars truly make a difference to the economic and environmental footprint of the trucking business? And how important is this funding anyways?

Several months ago, John Johnson – professor of mechanical engineering at Michigan Technological University – tried to answer that very question in testimony before the U.S. Congress. He chaired a committee that reviewed the “21st Century Truck Partnership” formed back during President Clinton’s administration to see if in fact this public-private R&D effort delivered concrete technological advances worthy of its funding. In his opinion, it did, but I share his thoughts so you can decide for yourself if his argument holds water to your mind.

For the record, I’ve never met Professor Johnson and know very little about his work. But his resume indicates he’s well versed in diesel engine technology.

After getting his PhD, Johnson spent two years as a 1st Lieutenant in the U.S. Army in the late 1950s at the Tank-Automotive Center in Warren, Michigan managing engine research projects. He then worked as chief engineer of applied engine research at International Harvester (now Navistar) before joining Michigan Technological University in 1970. Since3 1980, Johnson said he’s participated in 12 different National Academies Committees, so he’s well-versed in the rigmarole required to get public-private ventures up and running successfully.

“Despite the many benefits of the ‘21st Century Truck Partnership,’ including helping the engine industry meet the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] 2007 particulate and 2010 NOx [oxides of nitrogen] standards, the program suffered from the dwindling resources devoted to the program by DOE [the Department of Energy],” Johnson said in his testimony back in late March.

“Funds were about $87 million in FY 2002 and decreased to $30 million in FY 2008. This funding pattern does not reflect the number of productive R&D opportunities. It also does not reflect the economic weight of the industry,” he said. “In the 2002 Economic Census, the truck transportation industry consisted of more than 112,698 separate establishments, with total revenues of $165 billion. These establishments employ 1,437,259 workers, who take home an annual payroll of $47 billion.”

[Though those numbers more than likely decreased over the past year and half due to the economic downturn in the U.S. and worldwide, it still shows how big the trucking business really is.]

“Truck and bus manufacturing also account for a significant share of national income,” said Johnson. “According to the same census, light-truck and utility-vehicle manufacturers have total shipments of $137 billion. Heavy-duty-truck manufacturing had sales of $16 billion. Another way to look at the trucking industry’s economic contribution is to compare the revenue from trucks with other sectors in the transportation industry, in which case trucks account for about one-fourth of the industry’s total revenues.”

Because of the low level of funding from DOE, he noted, the 21st Century Truck Partnership (‘21CTP’) chose to focus its R&D effort on the Class 8 long-haul type of vehicle, which consumes 75% of the petroleum in the heavy- and medium-truck sector.

“Yet it was forced to cancel many projects originally in the 21CTP roadmap, including light-weighing vehicles, all-electric components on vehicles, aerodynamic modeling and design, and low rolling resistance tires,” Johnson stressed. “Federal, state, and local governments and commercial trucking firms, such as utility and delivery operations that use medium-duty trucks, are also interested in the fuel economy of their vehicles since it also affects their operating costs – they want advanced technology such as hybrid vehicles.”

As a result of potential fuel economy regulations by NHTSA [National Highway Traffic Safety Administration], he said it’s important that the Federal government fund the DOE program at levels such as $200 million/year with $90 million/year for engine, emission control systems, and biodiesel fuels research.

“The program should be funded for 5-10 years at this level so that the industry will have the technology in the 2015-2020 timeframe to meet potential fuel economy regulations,” Johnson emphasized.

He also pointed out that safety is another important part of the 21CTP program. Though crash protection measures have not substantially reduced highway fatalities during the past decade, Johnson said the main research objective going forward should be to prevent crashes using crash avoidance technologies and in-vehicle communications systems.

“There is need for $25 million per year for safety related research which should be designated for DOT [Department of Transportation] by line item for the 21CTP,” he said.

Johnson added that other efforts need funding over the next decade, especially R&D programs to decrease medium- and heavy-duty truck petroleum fuel consumption. Those areas include: the use of advanced diesel engine and aftertreatment technologies, advanced truck and trailer aerodynamic designs, and low rolling resistance tires.

The use of hybrid systems in applications that have duty cycles that can reduce the fuel consumption, including advanced cooling systems and engine components that use less energy, is another area, he noted, along with “light weighing” of vehicles and trailers so that more payload can be carried which reduces the fuel consumption in gallons/ton of payload-miles are needed.

“A major effort must be carried out to develop biodiesel fuels that meet ASTM specifications, are energy and greenhouse gas efficient in the production of the bio component and make good use of the land without compromising the food supply and the price of food,” Johnson argued. “It is important that the price differential between gasoline and diesel fuel does not increase more than the 60 to 70 cents per gallon that has existed in the past few years.”

Decreasing the truck petroleum fuel consumption with lower fuel consumption vehicles should help this diesel fuel market demand condition that now exists, he said. “More biodiesel fuel use should help decrease the demand for the petroleum fuel if the research program is aggressive,” Johnson explained.

“One of our findings on the management strategy and priority setting pointed out that the program operated as a virtual network of agencies and government labs with an unwieldy structure and budget process,” he added. “This would be significantly improved if heavy truck funds for EPA, DOE and DOT were designated by line items that are directed at this program. I know that this is very difficult because each of these agencies go to different Congressional Committees for their funds. [But] the U.S. has always been a world leader in developing advanced trucks. The heavy-duty diesel engine has always been cutting edge technology in durability, reliability, low fuel consumption, and now in 2010 low in emissions. This product development and manufacturing base in the U.S. must be maintained if we as a country are to be strong in the global economy.”

Johnson also stressed that this truck manufacturing industrial base is also important to the military, particularly to the Army and Marines since diesel powered vehicles and diesel fuels are critical elements of U.S. ground forces.

“We must maintain this base … [and that] will happen with an aggressive R&D program in the commercial sector that includes maintaining National Laboratories and Universities as strong components in the program,” he stressed.

You may agree or disagree, but Johnson makes some very interesting points – especially in terms of how much our military relies on the very same network of manufactures and suppliers that supports the commercial trucking business. That connection is a critical one, as both military and commercial trucks can benefit from fuel economy advances, yet equally suffer from a lack on investment. Thoughts worth pondering in the continual debate over U.S. transportation and trucking needs for the future.

“A thousand words will not leave so deep an impression as one deed.” –Henrick Ibsen

It’s often easy to forget that trucking isn’t just about chrome and steel, barking diesels, shifting gears, and miles of asphalt extending in every direction off over the horizon. For at its heart, trucking is really all about people – the human hands that make the trucks, drive the trucks, maintain the trucks, and countless others in between. And as with any human endeavor, trucking of course reflects our flaws as well as our genius; our mistakes as well as our successes.

Most importantly, though, a lot of good deeds get done every day within this industry – and not just on the heroic level, with everyday truck drivers risking their lives on the highway to save others. A lot of simple yet abiding good works flow from the hands and hearts of countless people in this business, much of it done just for the sake of doing a good thing, despite the hard times we’re all facing; not in the hopes of glory or future remuneration.

One such deed occurred out in a place usually referred to as “Sin City” recently, when Peterbilt PacLease of Las Vegas made an unusual donation to the local chapter of Goodwill Industries: a brand new 2010 model tractor, worth $100,000, on a six-year “free and clear” lease – meaning all Goodwill must do is fuel the truck and provide a driver, as even the maintenance is all taken care of gratis.

[For a video report on this story, click here. The local TV station’s report is in the upper right hand corner.]

“This actually came about because of these tough times – we weren’t trying to thump our own chest,” Dan Moss, the company’s general manager, told me. “We’ve always been involved with the local community, giving to different charities, but this year we realized we couldn’t write a big check to Goodwill like we’ve always done. So I started hunting around for another way to help out.”

Moss realized that trucks were essential to Goodwill’s operations – hauling donations to and from its thrift stores and providing other services to the community. He figured if he could get some equipment discounts and a group of companies (including his) to cover the monthly lease payments on a truck, Goodwill could essentially get a free truck.

Happily enough, he found no resistance to the idea – quickly getting discounts from Peterbilt on the truck and PacLease on the financing. Within two weeks, he had enough volunteers lined up to cover the monthly truck payments and Goodwill soon had its truck.

“We were surprised at all the services Goodwill offers and how they use trucks to do it – and shame on us for not knowing all that to start with,” Moss told me. “We really feel, though, that anything we can do to help the community is important because – in the end – we’re really helping ourselves.”

He also pointed out that his local Goodwill chapter placed 300 people in jobs so far this year, in this poor economy, so by not having to shell out $100,000 for a new truck, they may be able to work more such wonders as 2009 progresses. “This has really been one of the best things I’ve worked on all year,” Moss said.

Daimler Trucks North America (DTNA), Daimler Financial Services and Johnson Refrigerated Truck Bodies joined forces to do something similar as well this year – donating a hybrid-powered Class 7 Freightliner truck with a 20-foot fiberglass refrigerated body to Forgotten Harvest to serve its Detroit facility, giving the food bank the capacity to rescue 850,000 additional pounds of fresh food on an annual basis.

“This generous donation … advances our mission of reducing hunger and waste,” said Susan Goodell, executive director of Forgotten Harvest. “It will not only improve our operating efficiency by keeping fuel costs down since it’s a hybrid truck, it will also allow us to direct more donated dollars to distributing food in a way that protects the environment.”

The 31,000-pound Class 7 truck is the fifth truck donated by Daimler Financial Services and DTNA and aftermarket body builders in the past four years, bringing Forgotten Harvest’s growing fleet to 21 vehicles – an effort that didn’t get shelved due to the tough economic climate, I might add.

And what a mission Forgotten Harvest performs using trucks! They currently believe they can rescue more than 12 million pounds of food this year by collecting surplus prepared and perishable food from a variety of sources, including grocery stores, fruit and vegetable markets, restaurants, caterers, dairies, farmers, wholesale food distributors, and then deliver it free of charge to 150-plus emergency food providers in the metro Detroit area.

Sometimes the good deeds focus on helping just a single individual. Take the case of Mike Jakubowski, a young truck driver with cancer of the parotid gland working in Nebraska. He got to take center stage at scale-model race benefitting both the Super Truckers Relay for Life Team and himself at the high school track in O’Neill, Nebraska.

Local dealership Peterbilt of Norfolk challenged next door rival Sahling Kenworth of Kearney dealer to a toy truck race for charity during the Holt County Relay for Life on June 12 featuring a 1:32 scale-model diecast metal Peterbilt 379 remote-control truck with a dry van trailer against a similarly equipped Kenworth T-2000. Jakubowski “drove” the remote controlled toy Peterbilt (as he himself drives a Pete 379) while his brother-in-law Willie Drueke “drove” the T-2000 (as Willie operates a Kenworth for his family’s business, Drueke Trucking.)

Though Jakubowski [he’s on the left in this photo, being presented with a toy truck by Don Burns, sales representative at Peterbilt of Norfolk. Mike’s wife Cindy took this shot by the way] won the toy truck race and much fun was had (and family bragging rights established) the event also raised $5,000 for cancer research and probably gave Jakubowski a much needed break from the physical struggle he faces.

Then of course there’s Goodyear’s 2008 North America Highway Hero, Jorge-Orozco Sanchez – a man who pulled two young girls from a burning car moments before it exploded last year after a horrible accident. But he lost his truck in that crash and due a delay in his insurance settlement, he wasn’t able to return to driving. His family’s main source of income was gone, the bills continued to pile up, and Sanchez couldn’t resume his livelihood.

Then the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) stepped in, found him a 2005 Freightliner Columbia tractor in Missouri and a 2008 Timpte grain hopper in Illinois, and financed the purchase. The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company donated 18 new Goodyear truck tires and Pilot Travel Centers donated a $250 fuel card to help Orozco-Sanchez pay for his trip to pick up the truck and trailer.

[You can read about Sanchez’s long road back by clicking here.]

Friends loaned Orozco-Sanchez the money to pay for the truck and trailer’s registration and licensing. And then the Truck Writers of North America (TWNA) and its member organizations paid the $1,400 down payment due on his insurance.

“I am so grateful to everyone who helped me get back on the road,” said Orozco-Sanchez, who made his first two deliveries of grain from The Scoular Company’s grain facility in Sterling, Colorado, to the Five Rivers Feed lot outside Gilcrest, Colorado, on June 3.

“This gives my family a chance to catch up with the bills,” he said. “God bless everyone, and I want them to know I will work hard and try not to let them down.”

No, Mr. Sanchez – you of all people don’t need to worry about letting anyone down, as two young children are alive today because of your courage. It’s just great to see an industry come together and return the favor by helping you out in your time of need.

These examples are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the good deeds done in trucking – deeds that continue despite one of the worst economic downturns ever experienced by this industry. It’s nice to know that even when the chips are down and times are tough, folks in trucking don’t stop giving.

“Responses to climate change impacts in the United States will almost certainly evolve over time as we learn through experience. Implementing these response strategies will require careful planning and continual feedback on the impacts of policies for government, industry, and society.” –Dr. Anne Waple is with the US Global Change Research Program

If you missed it, President Obama’s administration issued a big report this week on the potential impact of climate change in the U.S. You’d be forgiven if, upon reading it, you’d think the authors used the Bible’s “Book of Revelations” as a style guide, but that’s beside the point I’d like to make here.

First, the report – given the surprisingly bland title of “Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States,” considering the almost hysterical nature of the prose within – outlines the possible direction of climate change under two broad scenarios, according to Dr. Anne Waple: the first projects what might happen if the U.S. focuses on aggressively reducing greenhouse gas emissions, with the second postulating what happens if we don’t.

The report also details the current impact of climate change already being felt across the U.S. as well as those that will soon emerge or become more intense if action is slow to occur. Some of the impacts that Dr. Waple pointed out in her briefing this week are:

• More rain is already coming in very heavy events, and this is projected to increase across the nation. This would have impacts on transportation, agriculture, water quality, health, among other sectors;

• Heat waves will become more frequent and intense, increasing threats to human health and quality of life, especially in cities;

• Warming will decrease demand for heating energy in winter and increase demand for cooling energy in summer. The latter will increase peak electricity demand in most regions;

• Water resources will be stressed in many regions. For example, snowpack is declining in the West, and there is an increasing probability of drought in the Southwest, while floods and water quality issues are likely to be more of a problem in most regions;

• In coastal communities, sea-level rise and storm surge will increase threats to homes and infrastructure including water, sewer, transportation and communication systems.

Dr. Waple went on to say that effectively managing the nation’s response to a changing climate falls into two general categories:

1. Implementing measures to limit climate change and therefore avoid many of the impacts discussed in the report. These measures must reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and might include increasing our reliance on clean energy, and developing energy efficient technologies

2. Reducing our vulnerability and increasing our resilience to ongoing climate change in pro-active, community-based ways. Examples of this include such measures as developing more climate-sensitive building codes to keep people out of harm’s way, or planting more drought or heat tolerant crops, for example.

OK, now, whether you agree with anything in this report or not, it’s my belief that not much is going to be done about it – except for an effort here and there by the federal government to raise taxes. In short, this is an exercise in futility.

Now, why would I say that? It’s simple – and we’ll use the third bullet point above as an example. Climate change is supposedly going to increase demand for heating and air conditioning – thus driving up energy demand. Yet President Obama’s administration is saying that we must reduce our overall energy demand and, further, significantly cut our reliance on coal, petroleum, and even nuclear power for it.

When push comes to shove, though, do you think 400 million Americans are going to willingly turn down the heat and turn off the A/C … or scream for more juice so they can stay warm and cool? We talk a good line about being “green” in this land of ours, but when it comes time to sacrifice, we’re always waiting for someone else to do it.

Here’s the other big problem – we in the U.S. don’t live on our own ecologically isolated island. We share the same water, air, and wind with the rest of the world. So we could become as “green” as conceivably possible … yet find all our efforts cancelled out by the two billion denizens of China that decide being “green” might remove a competitive advantage for them.

Right now, the environmental and safety mandates governing China’s factories and cities can’t even come close to ours – which is why in large measure so much manufacturing has been outsourced to them over the last two decades. And everything they do – or don’t do – is going to impact our climate issues, regardless of what we do or don’t do.

[This is one reason the U.S. refused to sign the Kyoto Protocols back in 2000 – because they severely restricted developed countries yet let nations like China, India, and others continue to pollute with abandon.]

Is this to say that we should NOT attempt to deal with climate change? Hardly. It’s just that we must realize that doing so will require a lot of sacrifice on the part of ALL Americans (especially from the Malibu house set in Hollywood), that it will change the way we live our lives for good … and that if the entire world doesn’t get on the bandwagon, it very well might be all for naught.

“Fostering the concept of livability in transportation projects and programs will help America’s neighborhoods become safer, healthier and more vibrant.” –U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood

Here’s a new one: the concept of “livability principles” to help coordinate U.S. transportation, housing, and environmental policy. This could have some serious ramifications for trucking, as I suspect the topic of “air quality” and its impact on “livability” could spell some big changes in terms of how goods and services are delivered to U.S. communities in the future.

Testifying together at a Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee hearing chaired by U.S. Senator Christopher J. Dodd today, U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan, and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson announced the formation of what they call an “interagency partnership for sustainable communities” to help improve access to affordable housing, more transportation options, and lower transportation costs while protecting the environment in communities nationwide.

This builds on work between HUD and DOT earlier this year to implement joint housing and transportation initiatives. With EPA joining the partnership, the three agencies will work together to ensure that these housing and transportation goals are met while simultaneously protecting the environment, promoting equitable development, and helping to address the challenges of climate change, the cabinet secretaries all said.

“Creating livable communities will result in improved quality of life for all Americans and create a more efficient and more accessible transportation network that serves the needs of individual communities,” DOT’s LaHood (at right) noted.

“These principles mean that we will all be working off the same playbook to formulate and implement policies and programs,” added HUD’s Donovan (below, at left). “For the first time, the federal government will speak with one voice on housing, environmental and transportation policy.”

“It’s important that the separate agencies working to improve livability in our neighborhoods are all pointed in the same direction,” said EPA’s Jackson (below, at right).

“We’re leading the way towards communities that are cleaner, healthier, more affordable, and great destinations for businesses and jobs,” she said. “This partnership provides a framework to guide decisions that affect all communities. This way, investments of financial and human resources by any one of our agencies will meet shared goals and confront significant challenges we all face together.”

OK, so what do these “livability principles” entail? See the following:

1. Provision of more transportation choices: Develop safe, reliable and economical transportation choices to decrease household transportation costs, reduce our nation’s dependence on foreign oil, improve air quality, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote public health.

2. Promote equitable, affordable housing: Expand location- and energy-efficient housing choices for people of all ages, incomes, races and ethnicities to increase mobility and lower the combined cost of housing and transportation.

3. Enhance economic competitiveness: Improve economic competitiveness through reliable and timely access to employment centers, educational opportunities, services and other basic needs by workers as well as expanded business access to markets.

4. Support existing communities: Target federal funding toward existing communities – through such strategies as transit-oriented, mixed-use development and land recycling – to increase community revitalization, improve the efficiency of public works investments, and safeguard rural landscapes.

5. Coordinate policies and leverage investment: Align federal policies and funding to remove barriers to collaboration, leverage funding and increase the accountability and effectiveness of all levels of government to plan for future growth, including making smart energy choices such as locally generated renewable energy.

6. Value communities and neighborhoods: Enhance the unique characteristics of all communities by investing in healthy, safe and walkable neighborhoods – rural, urban or suburban.

The DOT/EPA/HUD partnership is designed to integrate housing, transportation, water infrastructure, and land use planning and investment – and reap significant benefits from this coordinated policy effort. All three cabinet secretaries touted some big potential benefits from doing this, which include:

More sustainable growth: This joint policy effort is supposed to help U.S. communities set a vision for sustainable growth and apply federal transportation, water infrastructure, housing and other investments in an integrated approach that reduces the nation’s dependence on foreign oil, reduces greenhouse gas emissions, protects America’s air and water and improves quality of life. Coordinating planning efforts in housing, transportation, air quality and water — including planning cycles, processes and geographic coverage — will make more effective use of federal housing and transportation dollars

Redefine housing affordability and make it transparent: The triple-agency partnership is also supposed to develop federal housing affordability measures that include housing and transportation costs and other expenses that are affected by location choices. Although transportation costs now approach or exceed housing costs for many working families, federal definitions of housing affordability do not recognize the strain of soaring transportation costs on homeowners and renters who live in areas isolated from work opportunities and transportation choices. The partnership will redefine affordability to reflect those costs, improve the consideration of the cost of utilities and provide consumers with enhanced information to help them make housing decisions.

Develop livability measures and tools: Here’s a big one – coming up with metrics to rank the livability of communities, neighborhoods and metropolitan areas. These measures could be adopted in subsequent integrated planning efforts to benchmark existing conditions, measure progress toward achieving community visions and increase accountability. HUD, DOT and EPA said they would help communities attain livability goals by developing and providing analytical tools to evaluate progress as well as state and local technical assistance programs to remove barriers to coordinated housing, transportation and environmental protection investments.

Just taking a quick read of the joint-agency planning here, there could be many positives and negatives for truckers. On the positive side, if this effort reduces car transportation significantly, then traffic congestion would by extension be reduced. On the negative side, we could see more “clean air” mandates come out of this similar to what is going on at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach in California – mandates that might, and I stress MIGHT here, raise the cost of freight transportation in many communities.

It’s still too early to tell where this ambitious proposal may lead. Tell you one thing though: whether you like it or hate it, this joint agency policy initiative is a major departure from past governmental efforts and could definitely prove to be a bold move if it brings more innovation to the table.

“Until … economies of scale are established, most heavy-duty hybrids will be sold at a very high premium compared to non-hybrids.” –Dennis Slagle, president and CEO, Mack Trucks

It’s the “Catch-22” of the hybrid truck industry: higher sales volume of these trucks would significantly helps lower the cost of hybrids, but their currently high sticker price of hybrid trucks compared to their diesel-only brethren keeps sales low. So what to do?

That’s a point where OEMs, fleets, industry experts, and (yes, you knew there’d be a few) members of Congress agree that more incentives to spur sales of hybrid trucks are needed. Not an easy solution to swallow, considering the debt load our nation is carrying right now ($11 trillion and rising) and the still-abysmal state of our economy.

Yet here we were, at an event in front of the U.S. Capitol building – lyrically dubbed “Hybrid Day on the Hill” – calling for increased government largesse to offset the purchase price premium for hybrid trucks and buses.

Yet if you think about it, this is actually a pretty smart idea, providing federal incentives to spur the purchase of hybrid trucks – be they tax credits, rebates, whatever. Hybrids make a good fit in many different truck applications – pickup and delivery, refuse, beverage, utility operations, you name it – and they provide an awesome “one-two” punch in terms of reducing fuel usage AND tailpipe emissions simultaneously.

The best thing is, if the batteries go dead for whatever reason, the truck isn’t stuck on the side of the road. Rather, the diesel engine can keep it up and running and in service – and thus, from an operational point of view, there isn’t an extreme Achilles heel with this technology.

Yes, a lot of work still needs to be done – recycling the batteries required to provide electric power onboard these hybrid trucks is the big one – but it’s an effective solution and it’s available now, Over 1,000 hybrid trucks are in service or on the production line right now – it’s not technology, like hydrogen-powered fuel cells, that’s at least a decade away from practical every day use.

“Our hybrid technology will be commercially viable, yet it will take time to establish a robust hybrid market for heavy vehicles that will enable us to invest in large scale production,” said Dennis Slagle, president and CEO of Mack Trucks. “Incentives will accelerate the adoption of Class 8 hybrids and bring forward the positive environmental changes.”

“Government incentives are necessary to establish a market for these vehicles with environmental benefits, similar to the incentives offered for hybrid passenger vehicles,” said Thomas Kelly III, Mack’s senior vice president-product portfolio management (seen in the photo below standing at right, talking with John Walsh, Mack’s director of communications). “The public benefit of these incentives will be reduced environmental impact as hybrid heavy-duty trucks become more common.”

He believes some existing short-term federal tax credit programs apply to heavy-duty hybrids, and some incentives in the federal stimulus bill could possibly apply as well. But Kelly also thinks longer-term incentives are needed. “For example, we’d like to see Congress extend the federal Alternative Motor Vehicle Credit, enacted by the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which expires at the end of 2009,” Kelly said.

I talked to Kelly at the “Hybrid Day on the Hill” event last week (you can see a video interview with him at that event below) and to his mind, the flexibility of hybrid technology is its greatest asset – technology that can be used in shuttle buses, package delivery vans, refuse trucks, and even linehaul tractors. Mack is currently pilot testing two hybrid refuse truck designs with Waste Management and New York City’s Dept. of Sanitation to see just what kinds of savings the technology can generate.

“We’re talking fuel savings, savings from reduced wear and tear, and of course less noise – that’s a big benefit, especially in urban truck operations,” he told me.

Hybrids are certainly not a silver bullet to our energy security and environmental issues, but they do offer a strong advantage in that fleets don’t have to turn their operations upside down and inside out to incorporate them. That’s worthy of some investment dollars at the federal level, I think.

“Absolutely the two most important things to him in life were being honest and being dependable. If he told you he was going to be somewhere at a certain time, he’d be there. His word was his bond. That’s a rarity today.” –Debbie Rice, talking about her longtime companion Daniel James Stout, a veteran truck driver that died of cancer in 2008

The e-mail wasn’t much different from the many others I receive; the submission of custom truck photos for a chance at publication. Yet as soon as I started reading it, that all changed.

The truck in this photo is the pride and joy of Daniel James Stout – an owner-operator with 30 years in the business, who loved trucks and trucking probably as much as anyone in this industry. He’d gotten his truck just right – a fresh paint scheme in the “old style,” tricked out here and there with chrome – when he suddenly contracted brain cancer and died.

It’s probably a story familiar to many in trucking, one that could easily drown in grief and despair. I for one know a little something about that, as it was only two years ago I lost two really good friends – one being Terry Nguyen, our first web editor and one hell of a great writer, who died tragically in June 2007 in a swimming accident while on vacation.

I know all about trying to push memories of the departed away for fear they’ll dredge up even greater amounts of sadness. But that’s not the way it should ever go – and that is certainly not the way Debbie Rice wants it go when it comes to Dan Stout.

You see, Debbie and Dan had been together for almost 14 years, living on what’s left of her family ranch in Tucson, Arizona. Dan hauled livestock for a living – mainly cattle – while Debbie operated a small horse boarding business, with room for 19 of the graceful creatures on her five-acre property. They loved animals as you might expect – Debbie told me she’s got 15 cats and five dogs underfoot at the moment – and when Dan wasn’t on the road, he was knee-deep in the ranch, helping her out wherever help was needed.

“I think about him everyday all day,” she said. “I was so lucky that he came into my life. I think we made life good for each other. I will miss him until I can be with him again.”

Now, a lot of folks might sell such a truck after a loved one dies – often times as a way to remove a reminder of grief from their sight. Not Debbie. She’s holding on to Dan’s gorgeous rig and is keeping Dan’s business – Stout Trucking – a going concern, with a part time driver and the help of Dan’s two best friends, both named Dave.

She’s doing this partly out of necessity – hauling livestock, though only part-time, seasonal work, is still a money maker – and partly to preserve Dan’s memory and what he stood for as a trucker.

“I think he always loved trucks. He was the smartest man I know and was like a sponge. He knew a lot about a lot of things, but he knew everything about trucks,” she told me.

Like a lot of trucking veterans, Dan (seen here on the left) is of the “old school.” He went to work for the State of Arizona in a tire shop right out of high school, moving trucks and equipment around the yard on occasion. Tried going to college, didn’t like it, and so learned to drive big rigs from an old time trucker and retired high school teacher. When he was 20 went to work for Atlas Van Lines and at 21 got his CDL and bought his own truck.

“He pulled a dry van for a short time but hated it,” Debbie recalled. “It didn’t take him long to figure out that flatbedding and cow hauling was what he wanted to do. And he was absolutely one of the best.”

Debbie told me a lot of local ranchers called on Dan by name, knowing his reputation for getting things not just done but done right. Yet though Dan loved hauling livestock, many times the loads brought tears to his eyes. “He was raised as a child on a cattle ranch – really loved them – so it was always hard when he had to take the old dairy cows to the slaughter house,” Debbie said. “His biggest pride was in always delivering the animals safely to their destination. But, knowing where those old gals were going made it very tough.”

Though Dan was leased out for a great deal of his career, about eight or nine years ago he got his own authority and went on as an owner-operator. And though Dan’s trucking career took him all over the country, once he and Debbie met in 1996, he tried to stay pretty close to home.

And again, like a lot of truckers, Dan (on the right in this picture, with Debbie on the left) adhered to what many dub “old fashioned” – like honesty, dependability, and of course being safe on the road. “Dan used to tell me drivers of cars and trucks just don’t get taught what they need to know to be safe on the road,” Debbie said. “As much as he loved trucking, he complained about the attitudes and behaviors out on the road today. He also soaked up all kinds of statistics on accidents and safety. He never stopped learning about the industry.”

Dan seemed to be hitting his stride as an independent, too – managing his way through the current downturn – when fate intervened. Last year in February, he went to the doctors for a pain in his back; pain that turned out to be brain cancer. Though operated on in March 2008 to deal with the nine tumors found in his head, nothing could be done. By May, he’d passed on.

“It went really fast, thankfully, because he was so angry about the whole situation,” Debbie told me. “I also figured he left that truck for a reason. I just can’t sell it. So I’ve been lucky, with the help of our friends and a good driver to be able to keep his truck working. I think he’d like that.”

She also likes seeing Dan’s name on the side of his truck, heading on down the road. “Corny, I know, but I like to think his spirit is with his truck and me,” she told me. “That’s pretty much what I know.”

I think that’s plenty, frankly – a rolling testament to tried and true trucking values that never go out of style. Not a bad way to keep the memory of a trucker rolling on.

“The accuracy of the road slope information … enables our RunSmart Predictive Cruise to ease the burden on the truck’s engine when traversing challenging terrain.” –Elmar Boeckenhoff, vice president of truck product engineering, Daimler Trucks North America

Here’s a neat idea that’s going to become reality later this year – feeding real-time road terrain information gathered via global positioning systems (GPS) and digital maps into the cruise control on a tractor-trailer. That way, the cruise control can proactively adjust a big rig’s speed to climb a hill or descend a steep grade, giving it better control of the vehicle while saving on ever more costly diesel.

Daimler Trucks North America (DTNA) is making just such a system available on its Freightliner Cascadia Class 8 tractor in the third quarter this year – technology called “RunSmart Predictive Cruise” that imports GPS data alongside mapping information provided by NAVTEQ that can then size up upcoming changes in road terrain and adjusts the throttle accordingly, resulting in fuel savings, according to Elmar Boeckenhoff, DTNA’s vice president of truck product engineering (pictured at right).

NAVTEQ’s digital maps contain millions of miles of road networks – including precise road coordinates, information on the direction of travel and slope data for over 200,000 miles of highway throughout the contiguous U.S. “This application shows first-hand how attributes collected by our geographic analysts can drive innovation and create intelligent applications,” said Bob Denaro, vice president of NAVTEQ’s advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) group.

“By tapping into the power of ADAS, Daimler Trucks is leveraging data and technology to drive down fuel consumption to benefit both the physical and fiscal environments,” he said.

No, for sure, there are going to glitches to work out – and as MANY readers continue to rightly point out, this kind of cruise control technology can NEVER adequately replace the need for skilled human hands at the wheel. But with a professional driver at the wheel, this kind of “predictive” cruise control could potentially help fleets accrue fuel savings over time – and knowing how expensive diesel is getting, that could add up to a lot of bucks back in the wallet.

Once we start seeing some real-world results gathered on this technology later this year, then we’ll know if it’ll make a good fit for the U.S. over-the-road trucking market.

“Safety is a commitment … but it is much more than that. It is a moral issue and an important character trait.” – Steve Keppler, director of policy and programs, Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance.

It’s not every day that you see parallels drawn between safety in the trucking industry and the personal work ethics of baseball players – and not just any players, mind you, but one of the greatest of all time: Cal Ripken Jr.

It may seem a stretch to make this comparison, but Steve Keppler, director of policy and programs for the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) did just that in a recent speech before the Arizona Trucking Association this year – and whether you agree with his particular brand of analysis or not, it still makes for interesting reading, I think.

“Companies and individuals that exhibit this ‘safety commitment’ trait are almost without exception leaders, both in the industry and in their communities. Oh, and by the way, many are profitable as well,” he explained.

“Why is this the case? Because safety is NOT a cost; it is an investment,” he stressed. “It is also about doing things the RIGHT way. “

And that, to Keppler’s way of thinking, is where Cal Ripken Jr. comes into the picture.

“Even if you are not a baseball fan, unless you live under a rock you probably have heard of Cal Ripken Jr.,” he said. “Most people recognize him as the holder of the consecutive games played streak, an impressive 2,632 games. This is an unbelievable record that probably will never be broken.”

More important, however, are the methods and processes Ripken used to achieve that huge milestone in baseball history – an approach summed up by the term the “Ripken Way.”

“The ‘Ripken Way’ is a mindset – an approach, if you will – that if done properly will provide results,” said Keppler. Boiled down to their essence, the important components of the “Ripken Way” are as follows:

• Master the fundamentals

• Perfect practice makes perfect

• Use your head; and

• Hard work pays off

“I will not describe each of them since they are pretty straightforward and self-explanatory. They are also not complicated or scientific,” said Keppler. “Yet, how many people in today’s world want to over-analyze or over-complicate things?”

From this perspective, he stressed, safety becomes less about rules sand subsets of rules than a mindset; a particular philosophy that drives a company’s actions.

“It is NOT just about regulatory compliance. It is something you have to practice every day. It is about going above and beyond the typical … as the ‘typical’ will not allow you to separate yourself from the crowd,” Keppler noted. “Investing in the safety mindset pays dividends in many ways. Some of these dividends are tangible, and some are not. However, they ALL help to improve performance and results.”

OK, so – as the old Wendy’s advertisements used to crow – “Where’s the beef?”

Keppler pointed to detailed safety statistics compiled by his group every year – data that goes into what CVSA calls “SAFER” runs on the group’s above-average motor carrier members to see how they stack up against more “typical” motor carriers.

CVSA’s last SAFER covered the time period from 2004-2006. For 178 CVSA member motor carriers, the following were the results:

• Vehicle OOS [out of service] rate: 8.4%, vs. the national average of 23.4%

• Driver OOS rate: 1.4% vs. the national average of 6.6%

• 74.7% had Satisfactory Safety Ratings vs. the national average of 57.9%

• 4.5% had Conditional Safety Ratings vs. the national average of 30.1%

• 0% had Unsatisfactory Safety Ratings vs. the national average of 9.2%

Finally, CVSA’s member fleets recorded a 1.15 per 100 million miles fatal involvement crash rate, versus the national average of 2.15.

“Clearly, these data show that the safety mindset DOES pay dividends AND helps separate you from the ‘typical’ carrier,” Keppler (pictured at right) said.

“So, as you go to work each and every day I would ask that you think about the ‘Ripken Way’ and think about that safety mindset,” he noted. “Are you doing everything that you can do to separate yourself from the typical? Does that safety culture permeate every aspect of your organization? Does the senior management at your company understand that safety is not a cost, it is an investment? Are you fully able to articulate the value that safety brings to the company’s bottom line? Are you able to put a value on the intangibles?”

The good news, he said, is that all of that can be done and that it is worthwhile – as CVSA’s SAFER statistics bear out. It’s something to keep in mind as the focus on trucking safety continues to tighten every day.

“The General Motors board of directors authorized the filing of a chapter 11 case with regret that this path proved necessary despite the best efforts of so many.” – Kent Kresa, GM’s chairman.

Today doesn’t mark the end of General Motors – the former bellwether of American economic might. Rather, it’s the end of the GM we once knew – and maybe, just maybe, that’s not a bad thing.

Yet it’s sad nonetheless because I really thought – heck, really KNEW – GM had finally turned a corner on product quality and reliability; a corner it desperately needed to turn many, MANY years ago, but a critical achievement regardless.

Top-notch redesigns of its pickups (Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra), “car of the year” honors for the sleek new Chevy Malibu, the return of Cadillac and Buick to true luxury-brand status … all of these moments seemed for a while to serve notice that GM was on the way back after decades of dismal performance.

But alas … all of this came too late. The bottom dropped out of the automotive world last year with a fury, leaving GM strapped for cash and saddled with too many workers and too many plants. Beset by cost control issues for years, it could not make up the ground anywhere near fast enough, as cost cuts and government loans did little to staunch the heavy fiscal bleeding.

And so we reach today’s nadir: bankruptcy. Kent Kresa, GM’s chairman (at left), said in a statement that bankruptcy court-supervised process and transfer of assets should enable a “New GM” to emerge as a stronger, healthier, more focused and nimbler company with a determination not to just survive but to excel – and confident that this “New GM” can operate successfully in the intensely competitive U.S. market and around the world.

That remains to be seen, of course – yet I for one am hoping for the best. Much of my car-driving life involved “American iron” and I want to keep it that way. Not that I didn’t have poor experiences here and there with U.S. made cars and light trucks (the Chevrolet Cavalier leading the list in that regard) but there’ve been many more hits than misses.

My Chevrolet S-10 pickup, for one, stood the test of time, while my dad’s Oldsmobile Bravada SUV did well, too. While I’m a Ford person now (Windstar minivan and Explorer SUV), I still admire the products GM’s been cranking out of late.

I hope this bankruptcy interlude helps GM get back on the right track – and maybe this is kick it needs to get rolling again. But with Oldsmobile gone, Pontiac about to fade away, and the once-unique Saturn slowly disappearing from view, it’s hard to remain optimistic. But I’m going to try anyways.