Don't be idle

My local paper recently printed a column by Click and Clack which included a query about whether buying a used police cruiser was a good idea. The brothers responded in the negative, citing the high number of hours a police car spends idling compared to the seemingly low number of miles on the odometer. (I couldn't find the column in question online, but if you go here and search for the word "police", you'll see they've given basically the same advice several times over the past few years.)

My own response might have been different, in that it's my experience that (1) police cars tend to be mature (from a product perspective) heavily-built reliable sedans which have been regularly maintained, (2) ripping out all the electronics leaves a lot of gaping holes in the middle of the dashboard/console, so (3) you can almost always pick one up at auction for far (far) below the cost of another similarly reliable vehicle. So far below, in fact, that you can afford to replace the (worn by idling) mill with a crate engine and the (worn by a different form of idling) front seat with a good used one and still be well ahead of the game.

(OK, I know it's hard to get good gas mileage driving a Ford Crown Victoria, but by my way of thinking, buying (1) used and (2) reliable probably reduces emissions more than buying (3) new and (4) expensive. Besides, if you only put on a few thousand miles a year, your actual gasoline consumption still won't be all that high.)

All of which is a long way of getting to what really struck me when I read the column -- the fact that it's not only police (and campus police) cars that spend a lot of time idling. Delivery vehicles and (even more so) the trucks in our physical plant operation idle a tremendous amount. In fact, I was looking at some of the fuel/mileage logs down at the auto shop, and I'd say some vehicles burn 10 or more gallons idling for every one gallon they spend getting somewhere.

The truth of the matter is that sometimes a maintenance truck needs to idle. If it has a generator, or a welder, or some hydraulic equipment mounted on the back, a lot of that stuff requires the engine to be running. But the truth is, not all of it and not always. I suspect that our guys and girls in physical plant leave the motor running more often because they might need the generator than because they do need it. I mean, if you want to plug in a power tool at the back of the truck, who wants to walk all the way around to the cab, climb up and start the fool thing? It's so much easier just to park it, leave it idling and -- when you need some power -- know that you're good to go.

Our physical plant vehicles don't cause a majority of our campus emissions. In fact, they don't even get near accounting for 10% of our greenhouse gases. But they do emit around 4% of the total and, of that, I'd bet at least half is caused by needless idling. So a relatively simple behavioral change (if "simple" and "behavioral change" can ever be used in combination) might reduce campus emissions by perhaps 2%. And save fuel (read "dollars") at the same time.

I'm pushing for a "no idling" policy -- anything over one minute better have a good reason. I know a bunch of campuses have similar policies, so I'm hoping I can present it as eminently workable. What the compliance rate will be, I can't predict. Still, a 2% GHG reduction will be worth the effort.