torsdag 14 oktober 2010

forts: Twelve years of EcoDriving



During 2003 we also started WorkingEcoDriving, a similar education for anything that digs, lifts or pulls. We didn’t know how demand for such an education was. Surprisingly, more than we expected, we were hired by industrial companies with large forklifts, harbors, mines and other companies that had these machines. The difference here is that the driving instructor maybe never has seen the company’s machine before the education or even less been driving it. But usually it is a question about interaction between man and machine, and we have the special expertise that is required. A driving instructor is likely to understand how the driver thinks in certain situations by looking at the persons face and reading the body language, so the construction of the vehicle doesn’t matter that´s only technology. We worked with humongous mine trucks in the north of Sweden and reduced the fuel consumptions with 8%. That doesn’t sound like much, but you have to know that one single machine consumes the amount of a fully loaded fuel truck every 24 hours. And surprisingly the reduction increased after 6 month up to 20%. The idling consumption is approximately 4 US gallon/h and at full load the consumption is up to 90 US gallons/h. And in 2008 the yearly reductions lead to savings of 1.000.000 USD/year. One of the first subject for our instructor to discuss with the truck drivers was why they didn’t turn of their engines during lunch break? The answer was: “well, we are not supposed to…”

onsdag 6 oktober 2010

Forts. Twelve years of EcoDriving


During the years of 2000-2005
In the beginning of the new decade environmental issues started to be more interesting for people in general. The greenhouse effect, pollution, carbon dioxide and other emissions was on every ones lips, companies was talking about “citizenship” and the environment became something that could give benefits if it was handled correctly. In 2000 we launched HeavyEcoDriving, aiming for bus and haulage companies. The education was very similar to EcoDriving, but now we had to deal with a different kind of driver. Driving a truck or a bus is a job, nothing that everyone does, and the drivers often have a lot of professional pride. That fact demanded a different kind of pedagogic approach. How should we get the message true to a driver with 20-30 years of experience?

Surprisingly it was the environmental issues that helped us, there was an unexpected interest among the drivers to lower their impact on the environment, and this industry had for many years been considered a “dirty” business. We were also surprised by the large reductions in fuel consumption we achieved during our educations, it was not unusual with a reduction of up to 25-30%. The most common reason for that was that the driver handled their vehicle like they had done since they started their career as a professional driver. We realized that the vehicles have gone true a lot of development over the years, but not the drivers. It is not unusual that a driver never, during the last 10 or 20 years of his career, never have had any education at all how to drive his new bus or truck.

The interest from both haulages and bus companies was surprisingly overwhelming. A lot of bus companies in public transportation together with truck companies were the first ones out, we took our responsibility of pre-education measuring for those who had no figures of their consumption, and we also help them to establish incentives for the drivers. All this became a success story, we were doing it right from the beginning, and didn’t make the mistakes we did earlier with EcoDriving. We also learned that reinforcement and leadership from the companies was important for the results over time. During this period we also started the concept of Fuel efficiency coaching together with Swedish Road Administration. Fuel efficiency coaching is a working concept that enables companies/organizations to gain long-term benefits from Eco driving training. The concept is based on a three-pronged approach: monitoring, motivation and communication. Fuel efficiency coaching is also an economical association. At this point close to 20.000 drivers of heavy vehicles have been educated in HeavyEcoDriving with an average reduction of 13% fuel consumption, and the reduction over time is between 8- 25%.

To be continued...