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Liberty, Mo., Company Receives SmartWay Excellence Award for Reducing Fuel Use and Carbon Emissions

Release Date: 10/07/2008
Contact Information: EPA Region 7 - David Bryan, 913-551-7433, [email protected]; American Central Transport - Tom B. Kretsinger, 816-853-6010

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Environmental News

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(Kansas City, Kan., Oct. 7, 2008) - American Central Transport, Inc. (ACT) of Liberty, Mo., is one of 27 businesses receiving the SmartWay Excellence Award today for its efforts to reduce fuel use and lower carbon emissions from the transport of freight. EPA presents the award to those companies that significantly reduce their environmental footprint.

ACT strategies during 2007 involved purchasing trucks with aerodynamic profiles, mirrors and air shields, including four SmartWay-certified trucks. Trucks qualifying for the U.S. EPA SmartWay certification run cleaner and use less fuel. The company reduced its maximum truck speed from 70 mph to 65 mph, and added bunk heaters, auxiliary power units and low friction engine lubricants to its mix of strategies.

The company also uses truck stop electrification when available. Electrification harnesses a truck's electrical system, climate control and other needs, eliminating the need to idle the main engine. It can be a stand-alone system, or it can include a combined on-board and off-board system.

These actions and technologies helped ACT save 2,638,091 gallons of fuel with 394 trucks. Since 2005, ACT has achieved an 86 percent decrease in carbon dioxide, a reduction of approximately 32,823 tons.

Freight haulers for ACT also implement programs that optimize delivery routes, and provide more flexible shipping and receiving practices.

Based on their three-year commitments to upgrade their fleets and improve freight operations, SmartWay partners use these and other strategies to save more than 595 million gallons of diesel fuel each year – a savings of at least $2.5 billion per year – and eliminate 6.8 million tons of carbon-dioxide emissions that contribute to global warming.

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To learn more about the SmartWay program, go to:
www.epa.gov/smartway
www.epa.gov/smartway/transport/what-smartway/tractor-trailer.htm
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