Estimation of Fuel Use by Idling Commercial Trucks

This paper uses the recently published 2002 Vehicle Inventory and Use survey to determine the number of commercial trucks in the categories that are most likely to idle for periods of more than 0.5 h at a time. On the basis of estimated numbers of hours for both overnight idling by sleepers and long-duration idling by all size classes during their workdays, the total fuel use by idling trucks is estimated to be more than 2 billion gallons per year. Workday idling is determined to be a potentially much larger energy user than overnight idling, but data are required before any definitive conclusions can be reached. Existing technologies can reduce overnight idling, but development may be needed to reduce workday idling.