California car hauler wins major award for cutting down on idling fleet-wide

Content Sponsored by Hansen & Adkins

An auto transport hauler was recently recognized by Toyota for their commitment fight back against diesel emissions with the adoption of fleet-wide technology that cuts down on idling.

On June 17, Los Alamitos, California-headquartered trucking company Hansen & Adkins announced that they received Toyota’s Environmental Leadership Award. Toyota’s Environmental Leadership award is given to logistics companies that find ways to significantly reduce their C02 emissions.

The company says that their biggest contribution towards cutting down on emissions is their early adoption and fleet-wide implementation of Remote Start/Stop systems on all of their equipment. The systems allow company drivers to stop or start the truck’s engine remotely from the hydraulic controls during the loading process, which cuts down on idling time and emissions.

“The engine remote start/stop system has been a priority of mine ever since we changed our auto transport trucks from an electric powered hydraulic system to a power take-off (PTO) driven system. The benefit of an electric system was the hydraulics that operated the loading decks were operated by battery power. No fuel burned, no exhaust emissions, and very little noise. The downside to the electric system was the speed of operation. It was very slow in normal conditions and even slower when the weather was cold. Our drivers time is extremely important so changing to engine powered PTO hydraulics was an option that made sense. But I wanted to find a way to operate the system only when the hydraulics were needed,” said company co-founder Steve Hansen.

“I wanted the speed without the fuel consumption, emissions, and sound noise. So we engaged our dealer TEC Equipment in Portland, OR and Volvo Trucks to help. The product engineers at Volvo were instrumental in helping achieve the remote start/stop system we were looking for. From engineering the engine management system parameters to installing the sensors, required to make the system work, they were with us all the way. Our head of maintenance Robert Ferrell worked directly with Volvo to further refine the system so that we could install it in our shops, at a lower cost, with very little additional work. The result is a truck that performs much faster while being more efficient and quiet. The engine powers the hydraulic system when hydraulics are activated and the engine shuts off after a few seconds of sensing the driver is no longer using the system. In the end, we saved time, fuel, reduced emissions, and noise output. A four-way win for Hansen & Adkins Auto Transport,” Hansen continued.

“A driver’s office is the truck he drives. The better we can bring comfort, safety, and environmental achievements to our front-line workforce, the better the outcome with safety and drivers’ productivity. The more state of the art our equipment is, the less our carbon footprint will be. Our drivers care very much about the environment and how we preserve our air quality and reduce our fuel consumption. I am so glad to see all the latest technology that goes into our equipment to preserve our environment,” explained Barry Williams, Hansen & Adkins Vice President of Operations.

Hansen & Adkins is also SmartWay® certified by the US Environmental Protection Agency for their commitment to environmentally-friendly trucking practices.

Hansen & Adkins was founded in 1994 and has grown from just 3 trucks to a fleet of more 1,100 haulers that provides auto transport services through out all 50 states and Canada. To find out how you can join their forward-thinking team as a driver, please click here to get started.