300 natural gas vehicles deployed

UPS has deployed 300 new delivery trucks powered by compressed natural gas (CNG) to seven cities in Colorado, Georgia, Oklahoma and California.

The CNG vehicles, part of an order placed last May, will allow UPS to further reduce its dependence on gasoline and diesel and lower its carbon footprint. UPS operates the largest private fleet of alternative fuel vehicles in its industry – 1,819 in total with these additions.

The new CNG trucks have been deployed to Denver (43); Atlanta (46); Oklahoma City (100), and four cities in California: Sacramento (21), San Ramon (63), Los Angeles (9) and Ontario (18). All are now in service.

“Deploying alternative fuel vehicles dates back to the early days of UPS and this CNG deployment is one more step towards the greening of the our fleet,” said Robert Hall, UPS’s director of vehicle engineering. “Continuing to add CNG delivery trucks to our fleet is a sustainable choice because natural gas is a cost effective, clean-burning and readily available fuel.”

The 300 trucks deployed over the past month were built from scratch as CNG vehicles. They join more than 800 CNG vehicles already in use by UPS worldwide.

The CNG truck bodies are identical externally to the signature-brown trucks that comprise the UPS fleet. Marked with decals as CNG vehicles, the trucks are expected to yield a 20 percent emissions reduction over the cleanest diesel engines available in the market today.

For its alternative fuel fleet, UPS has deployed CNG, Liquefied Natural Gas, propane, electric and hybrid electric vehicles in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Germany, France, Brazil, Chile, Korea and the United Kingdom. The company recently announced the purchase of seven hydraulic hybrid delivery vehicles, a first in the industry, and has conducted research with hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.