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Diverse group of fleets set to participate in Run On Less Regional

June 19, 2019
The Run features a variety of truck brands and technologies, along with a variety of loads they haul: from food and beverage to package delivery to household goods.

In case you haven’t heard, last week we announced the 10 fleets that are going to be participating in this fall’s Run on Less Regional fuel-economy demonstration.

We had more fleets that wanted to participate, but we had to narrow the list to 10 and we did so based in part on the area of the country where those fleets operate. We were trying to have fleets operating in all parts of the U.S. and Canada. While unfortunately, we were not able to sign up a Canadian fleet, I think we did a pretty good job getting geographic diversity among the 10 selected fleets.

The 10 fleets and the home bases from which the truck and driver will be operating are:

  1. C&S Wholesale Grocers — Hammond, LA
  2. Hirschbach — Monterey, TN
  3. Hogan Transportation — St. Louis, MO
  4. J.B. Hunt — Corsicana, TX
  5. Meijer — Lansing, MI
  6. PepsiCo: Snacks and beverages division — Vancouver, WA
  7. Ploger Transportation — Norwalk, OH
  8. Schneider — Rockford, IL
  9. Southeastern Freight Lines — Columbia, SC
  10. UPS — Phoenix, AZ

To reiterate, we are defining regional haul as operations within a 300-mile radius of a home base. While the Run on Less Regional fleets may not be headquartered in the cities listed above, they have operations in those cities and the trucks and drivers will start out there. Some of them will operate in what we are calling a daily A-to-B mode, others will operate in a way that has them making multiple stops on a daily basis and still others will be running multi-stops over multiple days but will return home on a regular basis. We wanted the Run to reflect the realities of all types of regional haul operations.

Our fleets are also diverse in terms of size of operations, with some operating thousands of trucks, some hundreds and others with less than 100.

The Run will also feature a variety of truck brands and different technology solutions as well. And there is also variety in the types of loads they haul from food and beverage to package delivery to household goods.

Things are starting to come together for this our second freight efficiency demonstration. We are working out the details of the real-time monitoring we will be doing throughout the Run but it will include a number of factors such as miles traveled, fuel consumed, number of pickups and deliveries, elevation change and vehicle speed.

The goal with this Run is the same as it was with Run on Less 2017, and that is to demonstrate how investing in technologies and business practices can lead to fuel economy improvements.  Call us if you’d like to get involved.

We’re excited to see what we can learn from these 10 fleets.

About the Author

Michael Roeth | Executive Director

Michael Roeth has worked in the commercial vehicle industry for nearly 30 years, most recently as executive director of the North American Council for Freight Efficiency (NACFE). He serves on the second National Academy of Sciences Committee on Technologies and Approaches for Reducing the Fuel Consumption of Medium and Heavy-Duty Vehicles and has held various positions in engineering, quality, sales, and plant management with Navistar and Behr/Cummins.

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