Anti-idling efforts go high-tech
Delivery firm Canpar Transport LP is using a system from Ottawa-based Netistix Technologies to monitor the idle times of its 650 delivery vehicles, a lion’s share in Toronto. The company hopes to use the information to alter drivers’ habits with a goal of reducing idling time on each vehicle by an average of 30 minutes a day, leading to savings of $250,000 a year for its fleet. The system transmits vehicle data wirelessly, and the application can run over municipal Wi-Fi networks such as the one being deployed in Toronto.
I wrote about Netistix last November regarding a telematics project it’s leading. The company aims to provide vehicle diagnostic data and other information to project participants via wireless networks at local gas stations. The goal is to eventually introduce a mass-market product that will help drivers adjust their on-road habits and in the process get better fuel economy — and lower emissions — from their vehicles.
Tyler Hamilton is senior energy reporter and columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the cleantech market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper. Tyler can be reached at tyler@cleanbreak.ca