The campus fleet includes departmentally-owned vehicles, the car and truck pool vehicles, and the heavy equipment pool. The vehicular fleet is primarily cars and vans, while the heavy equipment pool is generally diesel-fueled large construction equipment, such as backhoes.

The Facilities & Services (F&S) fleet is divided into three categories:

1. Car Pool: contains 220 vehicles including cars, SUV’s and minivans. F&S provides fast and convenient full-service car rental for temporary (day or monthly rental) and permanent rentals.
2. Truck Pool: contains 300 service vehicles for electrical work, cargo-vans and dump trucks.
3. Heavy Equipment Pool: contains around 24 vehicles. They are large construction vehicles including the waste transfer trucks.

(NB. These counts are from a June 2017 report.)

Campus could increase the number of low-emission vehicles by 20% in the vehicular fleet. To reach this goal, campus can use the ways below.

1. Install equipment to upgrade the trucks, and thus reduce the emissions.

The campus could require and activate anti-idling equipment for all new class 6 and above trucks (with gross vehicle weight rating of over 19,500 lbs), and install idling-tracking equipment on all vehicles in the fleet.

2. Replace the high-emission cars with environmental-friendly ones.

We could increase the use of biodiesel blends in fleet vehicles. Campus could increase the use of electric vehicles and departmental bicycles (including electric bicycles) with cargo trailers to move individuals and small tools and equipment across campus.

3. Incentive units to reduce the fleet emissions.

To encourage the reduction of fleet emissions, campus could provide incentives to departments or individuals who replace a departmental vehicle with a low-emission alternative.

Sometimes being environmentally friendly is a cost savings, such as when several researchers use the same vehicle to attend an out-of-town conference.  Other times being environmentally friendly costs extra, such as using a more energy efficient vehicle like a hybrid or EV.  To solve the dilemma and take full advantages of the win-win solutions, staff in Automotive and Transportation Services try their best and they are doing very well under the circumstances.