How green is your fleet?

The City of Cape Town, through its Air Quality Managment Plan (AQMP), aims to be "the city with the cleanest air in Africa" and underpinning this plan are eleven key aims, one of which is the control of vehicle emissions.

Brown haze

The brown haze that appears on certain windless winter days when a temperature inversion layer traps pollutants has become a depressingly familiar sight.

According to a study published by the University of Cape Town's Energy Research Institute in 1997 most of the visible haze and harmful particles can be attributed to diesel vehicles; with petrol vehicles, wood burning and industrial boilers also being significant sources.

Sixty-five percent of the visible haze was attributed to vehicle emissions, of which 49% was caused by diesel vehicles and 16% by petrol vehicles.

Contributor to Climate change

Globally, transport is one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions: the World Resources Institute indicates that it accounts for 14% of total emissions, with road-based motor vehicles accounting for between 65% and 75% of these emissions.

Strategies to improve vehicle emissions under the Air Quality Management Plan include improving the public transport system, introducing vehicle emission testing as part of road worthy testing, encouraging the use of car pools, encouraging use of vehicles fitted with emission control equipment and supporting national initiatives like fuel reformulation.

The City is also committed to consider air quality in land use and transport planning and will work with the City's Energy and Climate Change Strategy to ensure that priority pollutants are addressed.

Improving the City's fleet

As the owner and manager of the largest vehicle fleet in the City, the City of Cape Town has a leadership role to play towards improving air quality and tackling climate change through its use of cars and trucks to service the needs of Cape Town.

By mid 2009 a planning framework to "green" the City's vehicle fleet was completed which entailed measuring and analysing fuel usage and vehicle emissions, analysing the behaviours and procedures that negatively impact fuel use and emission release, determining the level of maintenance of the fleet and evaluating and providing a cost-benefit analysis for improvement scenarios.

The City's Electricity Department fleet consisting of 740 vehicles was used as the guinea pig for testing the improvements and won a Green Supply Chain Award in October 2009 for managing South Africa's most environmentally-friendly vehicle fleet.

The fleet comprises a varied number of vehicles types including off-road utility vehicles, sedans, LDV's, panel vans and light, medium and heavy trucks.

Improvements included installing a satellite vehicle tracking system which enabled managers to keep tabs on every single vehicle in the fleet as well as affording extra safety to employees. Poor driving habits such as harsh acceleration and unnecessary trips could also be cracked down on.

A network of vehicle repair companies was mapped across the City so that broken down vehicles could be taken to the nearest agent. This reduced vehicle downtime, mileage and fuel consumption.

Gas analysers were used to test emission limits and the fleet's technical specifications were updated to Euro 2 standards which ensures fuel-efficient diesel technology is an essential requirement.

Right-sizing principles were applied ensuring an adequate vehicle is used for the job. This meant that 7 ton trucks using heavy arial platforms could be substituted by 4 ton trucks with lighter equipment doing the same job more efficiently.

Simple improvements were also introduced like not requiring all new standard-issue white vehicles to be repainted yellow, saving the Department thousands.

The City is planning to replicate these green practices learned in the Electricity Department across the entire City fleet which will at least go a little way to helping improve air quality and reduce greenhouse gas emissions around Cape Town.