DC Velocity - January 2011

areas of the business. But when it comes to fuel, I want all of us to be competing together to reduce fuel consumption levels or to achieve the highest miles per gallon. Now’s the time for all of us as an industry to look at fuel because we’ve got to figure out how to use as little of it as possible.”

get a pretty interesting increase in fuel efficiency just from reducing rolling resistance and reducing drag in terms of the air that’s being stopped by the truck, the tractor, the wheels, and the flaps.

We did two other major things this past year as well. First, we upgraded all of our reefer units and the gensets on our chassis. The genset is the unit that generates the electricity to power the reefer unit. That alone has saved us a tremendous amount of diesel.

Second, we installed more plug-ins for electrical reefer units. Normally, when you’re hooked up to a truck, the refrigerated trailer runs off diesel. So we collaborated with a couple of our carriers on the West Coast, and we put electrical plug-ins at our dock doors. Then,

we converted some of the fleet to get off of genset fuel and run those reefers on the electrical grid. So they plug into our facility when they’re there, and that has had a dramatic impact as well. Taken together, these steps have yielded substantial results.

QWhatelsehave you done in the past year? AWe’ve outfitted vehicles in both our private and dedicated fleets with a simple device called an “Eco-flap.” Instead of the traditional mud flap you see on tractors and trailers, the Eco-flap features an aerodynamic design that allows for optimal airflow through the flap but still protects the cars behind from rocks and such. You

QWhat was the carriers’ response to all of this? Were they willing to partner
with you on these efforts?

APeople ask me that question a lot. We’ve had an incredible response from our carrier community. I think it’s because of the way we manage our carriers. We’re not in this for the short run. We’ve always taken a long-term view. We don’t expect that they are getting disproportionately wealthy, nor are we getting disproportionately advantaged.

As an example, when we got into 2009, we voluntarily elected to hold our rates intact through the balance of the year, because we knew that our carriers were having problems. Everyone else was going out to bid constantly. The carriers were seeing more bids in the market than they had ever seen. But we take a long-term view with our carriers.

That long-term view has enabled us to gain their cooperation because they’re more willing to listen to us and try to make things happen. We are constantly putting ideas in front of them, and we listen to them when they have a great idea. It’s a nice give and take in terms of trying to push the network to a new level.

QWhat kinds of results have you seen from your sustainability program? AIn our baseline year of 2007, 21 per- cent of our carriers were SmartWay-certified. We’re now up to 88 percent. And in 2007, 75 percent of our miles were SmartWay miles. Now, that number is north of 95 percent.

Also, from 2007 to 2010, we reduced our CO2 emissions by 44 percent in our North America network. Plus, between 2009 and 2010, we improved our fuel efficiency by 9 percent. In addition to the fuel savings, we were able to reduce the total number of trucks. As a result, we consumed 17 percent fewer gallons of fuel in 2010 than we did in 2009. And we reduced our food miles by 8. 3 percent. ;