Polk County Takes on High Fuel Costs

with Bob Stanton, Director of Fleet Management at Polk County, FL
article by Windy Phillips

When it comes to reducing or controlling fuel costs, most fleets look directly to procurement. Polk County, Florida, however, took another route...behavioral change.

“We already had a good purchasing program in place, so we had to ask ourselves how else can we reduce costs?” relates Bob Stanton, the Director of Fleet Management at Polk County. “The only other way to do it is to reduce consumption. And the only way to reduce consumption is to modify driver behavior.” To implement a program of changing driver behaviors, Polk County took a three-pronged approach: reduce maximum miles per hour driven in fleet vehicles; educate drivers in Eco Driving skills; incentivize drivers adopting new behaviors. With a fleet of 2,100 mixed vehicles that travel over 14 million miles annually consuming up to 5.1 million gallons of fuel, changing driver behaviors to reduce fuel consumption promised the potential to pay off big. And it has.

Gasoline Tank

Speed plays a large factor in fuel economy. According to the California Consumer Energy Center gas mileage decreases rapidly at speeds above 55 mph, and slowing down from 65 mph to 55 mph can increase your mpg as much as 15 percent. And slowing down is exactly what Polk County did. County vehicle travel speeds were restricted to a maximum 55 mph on every County roadway except for Interstate 4. With safety as their top concern, the County consulted the Florida Highway Patrol and the County Sheriff first to verify that a speed reduction would not pose any risks to the motoring public – both agencies approved of the plan. To further ensure safety, Polk County invested in decals for each of the County’s vehicles to alert fellow motorists that the driver was observing 55 mph speeds. But what about potential hit to productivity due to longer transit times? “We studied the impact on productivity for two weeks before proceeding with the program,” explains Bob. “We sent County drivers out with instructions that as one driver takes the same route going a maximum of 55 mph with another driver going at the posted 65 mph, see what happens.” Bob himself participated in one of these experiments. He recalls “doing 55 mph I was passed up six or seven times by a city transit bus doing the posted 65 mph, but at every red light I caught up to the bus.” The end result? “In the end we arrived at the final destination within 10 seconds of one another.” With no hit to productivity, a 55 mph speed restriction for county vehicles was a no-brainer.

The person in the driver’s seat is the one who impacts fuel efficiency the most. According to Bridgestone’s Real Answers Magazine Volume 13, Issue 1, up to 35 percent of mpg are attributable to the person behind the wheel. This fact is just one of the slides that Bob uses in Polk County’s Eco Driver education program. In addition to Bridgestone, the County has drawn resources from Ford’s “Driving Skills for Life” program and several other sources to put together a program to educate their drivers. The resources are out there waiting to be used according to Bob, “all the OEM’s have embraced Eco-Driving and provide free resources.” So how do you find the info? “Googling Eco Driving will provide page after page of resources to use as source material,” advises Bob. At Polk County, they also put their own historical data from the GPS system used in their vehicles to work specifically customizing their Eco Driving training. As an example Bob cites: “The GPS in our vehicles tracks idle time. Historical data showed up to 250,000 hours of idle per year, which can equal a quarter of a million in fuel going out the tailpipe.” To combat this, idle time is one of the many topics covered during the County’s 45 minute training class. To date over 500 of the County’s drivers have participated in the voluntary education program. So how exactly do you promote participation in a voluntary education program like this?

While the 55 mph maximum speed is required of all county drivers, the education program is not. To promote involvement and buy-in of the drivers, the County created a fuel conservation incentive program. To participate, drivers must complete the Eco Driving skills program and sign a single page contract for a one year term. The process Bob shares is simple, “do the training, do the contract, enroll in the program.” In addition to observing the eco-friendly driving skills they’ve learned, the contract covers things like presenting their vehicle on time for maintenance, correct entering of odometer readings and driving safely with no involvement in preventable vehicle accidents. (A sample contract provided by Polk County can be accessed online at: http://www.fasterasset.com/fip_contract.) For their efforts, the County monitors the driver’s mpg for the one year period. If their mpg increases beyond 5 percent of their base mpg, the fuel savings is split between the County and the driver 50/50 based on the average fuel cost over the one year term of the contract. The County uses the actual fuel consumption savings to fund the payout to the driver. Because the savings are not budgeted, the incentive costs the County nothing. The program has had a potential incentive payout of over $300 for some drivers for the one year period. Unfortunately, the program won’t work for everyone. “By the nature of their work, some drivers are not eligible for the program,” explains Bob. “For instance with EMS vehicles and vehicles like transit buses where drivers don’t stay with the same vehicle consistently, it just isn’t possible to monitor the mpg effectively.” For those who can participate, however, each driver is eligible for the program for a single one year period. Why only one year? Additional improvements beyond year one would be negligible (the driver is already using the Eco Driving methods) and the reduction in fuel consumption should remain constant due to the driver’s improved driving methods becoming habit.

The resultant reduction in annual fuel consumption by 11 percent ($502,000 saved in fuel costs) met and exceeded the County’s expected results for the program. One might also expect the accompanying 3 million lbs. of carbon not added to the atmosphere through the County’s fuel reductions. But there were additional unforeseen benefits as well. As one of the requirements of the contract for the incentive program, drivers cannot be in any preventable accidents or they are dropped from the program. This coupled with the lower driving speeds and being educated in responsible driving habits resulted in side-benefit reductions in both the frequency of accidents (reduced 22 percent for a hard dollars savings of $138,000) and the overall severity of accidents (reduced 35 percent for $147,000 in property damages savings) for Polk County.

The results are irrefutable. The overall first year hard dollar savings seen by Polk County due to these initiatives was $787,000 with a hard dollar expenditure of only $800 for the decals for County vehicles. Other fleets in the area have started implementing similar initiatives after learning of the County’s savings. The Polk County School Board has adopted the 55 mph speed restrictions for their vehicles and are expecting significant results. The program championed by Polk County’s Director of Fleet Management Bob Stanton and the Assistant County Manager Lea Ann Thomas has proven itself to be easy to implement, low in cost and to yield significant benefits to fuel consumption, safety and the environment. So the only question that remains is how much could your fleet save using this program?

Do you have a story of your own to share with the fleet industry? Let us know by contacting us at faster.webmaster@fasterasset.com.

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