Getting First Responders to Care About Idle Reduction

There is probably no transportation sector better qualified than police and ambulance to illustrate the growing gap between how to properly idle-manage fossil-fueled vehicles in the 21st Century versus how idle management is actually practiced and its detrimental outcomes in these gasoline and diesel-driven assets.?

Our first responders are doing a demanding often dangerous job with their vehicles often the center of their professional universe. And, like almost every other transportation sector in the U.S. and Canada, they are also generally heavy idlers in their cruisers and ambulances (I’m not including fire trucks due to the mind-numbing complexity of these ‘fire stations on wheels’. I believe fire first responders are in an operational world all their own).

Police and ambulance rates of idling continually push the upper limits of how much idling a 21st-century engine can take. Generally, anywhere between 40% and 65% of engine hours are consumed by driver idling behavior in police and ambulance vehicles across the U.S. and Canada today.

The following are a few examples of non-operational idling which could be dramatically influenced by an effective idle reduction behavior modification program within police fleets:

Two cars parked next to each other with the engines running, windows rolled down for 20-30 minutes while officers chat.

The vehicle parked in the rear lot running while the officer sits inside eating lunch or sleeping on their lunch break.

The K-9 vehicles parked in the lot for hours with the engines running so the dogs stay warm or cool. Kennels could be placed in the buildings to eliminate this practice.

Vehicle running, doors locked, no one inside because the operator wants to have a warm or cool car to get into when they leave the office, sometimes 45 minutes later.

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The fact is modern engines can’t manage these extreme rates of idle. That’s because 21st-century engines are engineered to be driven and not idled. The idling is so heavy in these vehicles that it is not uncommon for members to burn out engines from their idling habits.

Meanwhile, continuous idling does not ready these vehicles for 'action at any time'. It’s our view that the reverse is actually true; heavy idling compromises engine and vehicle performance, greatly affecting vehicle downtime and employee productivity.

Let’s look at idling behavior’s cascade of costs:

*Fuel.

*Added maintenance, compromised warranties.

*Lifecycle costs.

*Vehicle downtime.

*Employee productivity.

*Carbon emissions.

*Air quality.

*Employee vehicle cost savings.

*Safety risk (vacant vehicle idling).

*Fleet reputation.

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Are these stratospheric rates of idling really necessary in this sector? After working closely with senior stakeholders in ambulance and police for many years I can provide a qualified answer: no.

However, rank-and-file officers and paramedics ultimately aren’t responsible for this ongoing disconnect. It is GoGreen’s view that any fleet operation in any sector in North America with high rates of idle rests solely on how its members are managed, developed and led.

Fleet management has either failed to get their members to care about how they idle, or they have tried to reduce idling exclusively with technologies, which does not build culture. Getting vehicle operators engaged to really, truly care about why it’s important to reduce idling, builds culture.

To illustrate that last point, police and ambulance operators have been seen sitting in parking lots gaming expensive idle reduction technologies installed by management. Incidentally, GoGreen strongly supports idle reduction technologies (IRTs) that complements carbon reduction by getting drivers ‘to care.’ These IRTs will have even better payback when drivers actually care about the metric.?

And now, with a ‘climate crisis’ continually in the news, it’s long past time to start talking about the reality of what’s happening with idling in first responders' fleets. The true understanding of this dynamic began for me when a member of my family was a police officer for a long time.

I became intimately familiar with management's ‘pushback’ on the ‘trivial’ nature of caring about idling. Or not having the time to add another training element to the force’s already overloaded schedule (idling is often dead last in priorities).?

And then, some seven years ago a community-leading, veteran paramedic in our region came to me engaging me to help with the ‘off the charts’ idling in their EMS fleet. It was so heavy; they were burning out engines on a regular basis. His inspiration led to our program evolving into an eLearning curriculum, which was a key requirement of his EMS operations executives.?"Paramedics have to be able to open an effective program in the palm of their hands, anytime, anywhere," the EMS operations manager said.

Yes, police and ambulance need to idle ‘operationally’ in the daily execution of their duties. However, based on research and practice dating to 2006, it’s my belief now that at least 40% to 50% of engine hours could be saved by getting these first-responder professionals to ‘care’ about idling. Many of them have kids (grandkids) or cars or cash they care about which would dramatically alter how they view the practice of idling a 21st-century engine. At home and at work.

Why is this ‘all the time idling’ happening in the first place? Here are just a few of the common reasons;

“It’s my office on the road; idling is just part of it.”

“We’ve got to be ready to go at a moment’s notice, that’s why we let the engines run.”

“I’ll get heat exhaustion from wearing my uniform and all of the tools that come with that.”

“We need to keep the temperature in here just right thanks to all of the medical supplies.”

In fact, knowing what we know now and working closely with fleet experts across the U.S. and Canada, here is how I see the extraordinary opportunity and benefits moving forward for police and ambulance fleet operators in 2023.

At least, those organizations with managers who want to be seen as sustainability leaders. They also strongly believe in winning ‘hearts and minds' of members versus ‘squeezing a round peg into a square hole’ by leaning on technology exclusively.

It’s our experience that ‘emotional engagement’ of members around going ‘idle free when parked and it makes sense’ with effective driver engagement will dramatically reduce ‘driver idling by choice’ in police and ambulance fleets. It will largely eliminate idling that can be eliminated on nice days, and during all those other instances when members can readily ‘go idle free’.

Members will then be largely thankful to management for upgrading their 21st-century idle management skills, at home and at work. “I had no idea idling has changed so much!” ...is a common response we hear.

Our research and practice have also proven that idling is not a mutually exclusive habit at work or home. In other words, if the officer idles 1,000 hours a year at work, they are also idling 100s and 100s of engine hours in their community, in their car, with their cash, at home. And at-home engagement in personal vehicles is where the true transformation takes place.

When these members understand the context and the impact around their unconscious, unrequired idling habit during non-operational use of their vehicles (why they should care), our practice has proven that it IS possible to build an idle reduction culture within a police or ambulance operation.

And no, electric vehicles and hybrids are not going to solve the idling epidemic in this sector anytime soon. Police and ambulance fleet operators have enormous investments in internal combustion engines that will make up the lion’s share of their fleets for quite some time to come.

In closing, imagine what’s possible by getting officers and paramedics to truly care about their air and the carbon they’re emitting at home and at work. GoGreen has proven that the outcomes will be truly extraordinary. Have a look at the case studies on our website:

Let us know what you think here in our ‘idle free feedback loop.’

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