The SmartWay Transport Partnership is a business organization administered by the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
government and designed to encourage businesses to manage
logistics
Logistics is generally the detailed organization and implementation of a complex operation. In a general business sense, logistics manages the flow of goods between the point of origin and the point of consumption to meet the requirements of ...
in an environmentally responsible way. The program was formed in 2004, and is administered by the
United States Environmental Protection Agency
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent executive agency of the United States federal government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it be ...
(USEPA) and is housed with the USEPA's
Office of Transportation and Air Quality (OTAQ) - Transportation and Climate Division (TCD).
SmartWay aims to voluntarily achieve improved fuel efficiency and reduce environmental impacts from
freight transport
Freight transport, also referred as ''Freight Forwarding'', is the physical process of transporting commodities and merchandise goods and cargo. The term shipping originally referred to transport by sea but in American English, it has been e ...
. SmartWay currently has approximately 600 member businesses, membership is voluntary. The organization provides incentives and recognition for top performers to encourage continued improvement.
Background and history
The Partnership was officially launched on February 9, 2004, with the support of 15 charter members and the backing of the
American Trucking Associations
The American Trucking Associations (ATA), founded in 1933, is the largest national trade association for the trucking industry. ATA represents more than 37,000 members covering every type of motor carrier in the United States through a federation ...
. Since its inception, the Partnership has expanded to include more than 600 companies and affiliates.
Partnership members are encouraged to improve fuel savings and reduce emissions in several ways. Freight carriers may upgrade their truck fleet with various fuel saving technologies and
idle reduction
Idle reduction describes technologies and practices that minimize the amount of time drivers idle their engines. Avoiding idling time has a multitude of benefits including: savings in fuel and maintenance costs, extending vehicle life, and redu ...
methods. Other possible strategies include:
* wind deflectors on the tops, sides, and rear of trucks, to reduce
aerodynamic drag
In fluid dynamics, drag (sometimes called air resistance, a type of friction, or fluid resistance, another type of friction or fluid friction) is a force acting opposite to the relative motion of any object moving with respect to a surrounding fl ...
;
*
fuel-efficient tires and
tire inflation systems to reduce
rolling resistance
Rolling resistance, sometimes called rolling friction or rolling drag, is the force resisting the motion when a body (such as a ball, tire, or wheel) rolls on a surface. It is mainly caused by non-elastic effects; that is, not all the energy nee ...
;
*
idle reduction
Idle reduction describes technologies and practices that minimize the amount of time drivers idle their engines. Avoiding idling time has a multitude of benefits including: savings in fuel and maintenance costs, extending vehicle life, and redu ...
equipment to power and cool the cab while the truck is not in motion, allowing the engine to be shut off;
* the use of
speed governors; and
* the use of hybrid powertrain systems, especially for urban operation trucks.
SmartWay Affiliates, which include various state government agencies and trade groups, play a promotional role for SmartWay by educating policy actors and their members about the benefits of the Partnership.
Goals of the partnership
By 2012, the SmartWay Transport Partnership aimed to save between 3.3 and 6.6 billion gallons of
diesel fuel
Diesel fuel , also called diesel oil, is any liquid fuel specifically designed for use in a diesel engine, a type of internal combustion engine in which fuel ignition takes place without a spark as a result of compression of the inlet air and t ...
per year, which translates to eliminating between 33 - 66 million
metric tons
The tonne ( or ; symbol: t) is a unit of mass equal to 1000 kilograms. It is a non-SI unit accepted for use with SI. It is also referred to as a metric ton to distinguish it from the non-metric units of the short ton ( United States ...
of
carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide (chemical formula ) is a chemical compound made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in the gas state at room temperature. In the air, carbon dioxide is transpar ...
emissions and up to 200,000 tons of
nitrous oxide
Nitrous oxide (dinitrogen oxide or dinitrogen monoxide), commonly known as laughing gas, nitrous, or nos, is a chemical compound, an oxide of nitrogen with the formula . At room temperature, it is a colourless non-flammable gas, and has a ...
emissions per year. The Partnership also aimed to reduce large amounts of
particulate
Particulates – also known as atmospheric aerosol particles, atmospheric particulate matter, particulate matter (PM) or suspended particulate matter (SPM) – are microscopic particles of solid or liquid matter suspended in the air. The ter ...
matter (PM).
Technologies
*
Semi-trailer aerodynamic device
A semi-trailer is a trailer without a front axle. In the United States, the term is also used to refer to the combination of a truck and a semi-trailer; a tractor-trailer.
A large proportion of a semi-trailer's weight is supported by a tracto ...
, including trailer skirts and trailer tails recognized under the SmartWay program
See also
*
Fuel efficiency
Fuel efficiency is a form of thermal efficiency, meaning the ratio of effort to result of a process that converts chemical potential energy contained in a carrier (fuel) into kinetic energy or work. Overall fuel efficiency may vary per device, wh ...
*
Green vehicle
A green vehicle, clean vehicle, eco-friendly vehicle or environmentally friendly vehicle is a road motor vehicle that produces less harmful impacts to the environment than comparable conventional internal combustion engine vehicles running on ...
References
{{Reflist
External links
SmartWay websiteJuly 2006 article on greening the supply chain from InboundLogistics.com
United States Environmental Protection Agency
Transportation associations in the United States