Approximately 30 percent of the average municipality’s greenhouse gas emissions are directly tied to their fleet vehicles—school busses, police cars, fire trucks, ambulances and such. So, addressing the driving habits related to this fleet, especially the amount of time these vehicles are left idling on a daily business, can have a profound impact on a town’s or city’s carbon footprint.
Just how much of an impact is demonstrated by a program piloted by Denver and greenhouse gas emissions tracking vendor Enviance, called Driving Change, which is an Internet-based greenhouse gas emissions management dashboard. As one metric, by measuring the emissions and reducing idling, Denver was able to quickly improve fuel efficiency by 15 percent among the vehicles that were part of the test program. Here’s the complete case study.
Given the results of the Denver pilot, the Public Technology Institute is now promoting the Driving Change program to cities and counties around the country.
The theory is that if civic governments tackle the issue of greenhouse gas emissions management — and talk about the results — it will convince private citizens in their communities to follow suit.
