When Canada Was Going to Save Itself from Idling Cars and Trucks.
Something we often hear is, in the ‘fullness of time’ we get a clearer perspective about what’s truly going on from lessons learned. Or, as we’ve heard many times “hindsight is 20/20.”
This is true in my case, as an ‘expert’ regarding the idling metric in the transportation sector of North America. As the ‘IDLE FREE Guy’, I have a unique and clear perspective of almost 20 years now which, I believe, is unequalled regarding North America’s 8.8 billion gallon annual idling habit. This, after 18 years of research and analysis, building school programs and a registered charity in Canada dedicated to “reducing vehicle emissions and improving air quality” (The Children’s Clean Air Network).
Today, it also includes having built a company dedicated to idle reduction (GoGreen) and discovering, codifying the behavioral science and then engineering a replicable process proven to transform driver ‘60’s idling’ beliefs and behaviors in 21st Century vehicles. It can be implemented and scaled across any fleet operation anywhere in the U.S. and Canada (or anywhere on the planet, for that matter). Drivers can take the program at their own pace on any web-enabled device.
Looking in my idling rear view mirror along the way, something else has become clearer to me with the benefit of time and perspective. Which is, how cold and calculating public policy by politicians and policy makers is around emissions from transportation, particularly in my home country of Canada. My guess is that’s true of all the other policies and issues that are on a list of political priorities (or not).
What I can see clearly now is that for the past 15 years, the federal Government of Canada and its provincial and municipal counterparts have doomed Canadians to poor air quality and a significant loss of family and business fuel budgets by perpetuating the belief that idling their finely tuned, fuel-injected, computer-assisted vehicles is A-OK.
It’s as if by their silence federal policy makers are saying, “go ahead and idle, we do. It’s no longer a concern. It used to be, but not anymore. EVs and ZEVs will solve all of this.” No, they will not. And idling cars and trucks is a bigger problem than ever.
In fact, idling as government fleets do is the worst operating condition for any fossil-fueled vehicle and generates a ‘cascade of costs’ in millions of fleet and family vehicles across Canada:
1. Fuel.
2. Added maintenance, compromised warranties.
3. Lifecycle, cost of ownership.
4. Vehicle downtime.
5. Employee productivity, staff levels.
6. Carbon emissions.
7. Air quality.
8. Savings in employee personal vehicles at home.
9. Safety risk (vacant vehicle idling).
10. Fleet reputation.
Why did Canadian politicians deep six their desire to do something about idling by educating the public and fleet operators on the benefits of ‘going idle free’? Because governments are used to spending money not saving money. And EVs and hybrids are a great way to spend money, lubricating the politics of carbon reduction with ‘shiny’ and ‘sexy’ fleets of vehicles which voters can see and touch and feel good about. Changing idling behavior is hard to see, and before telematics, was hard to measure (not anymore).
Privately, several well-placed MPs have admitted to me that the ‘seeding the marketplace with EVs’ strategy to reduce transportation emissions in Canada’s most populous provinces has been a “failure”. And today, we are left with minimal zero emissions vehicle product and penetration of EVs while idling our 97% of gasoline and diesel vehicles is off the charts. And yet, the brain trust of reducing transportation emissions at the federal level is still fully committed to an all-or-nothing ZEV strategy with zero activity on idling, the transportation greenhouse gas gorilla in the room. Just walk up and down any major street in Toronto, Vancouver or Montreal and smell the air. Watch those tailpipes generate the carbon and exhaust pollution.
Canadian Government fleets themselves are heavy, nonchalant, and unapologetic idlers, while pointing to EVs and a time in the future when we won’t have to worry about fossil fuel emissions at all in our transportation sector. Maybe 10 years. Maybe 20 years. Perhaps 30?
In the meantime, they’re asking us to look the other way on a problem that’s grown exponentially worse in the past 20 years. You might say it’s been open season on carbon emissions, air quality and our pocketbooks while promoting the belief that idling cars and trucks is no longer a big deal.
For more context around all of this, here’s more of the back story. About 20 years ago idling was a very big deal in Canada. OK…for a while. Politicians and policymakers at the federal level in Canada made a policy decision that idling behavior by the motoring public and fleet operators was worth political capital and funding to try and manage and help reduce its deleterious effects across this country.
Some $50M was earmarked toward a national program called ‘The Idle Free Zone’ promoting the virtues of cleaner air and less carbon by reducing our idling habit from coast-to-coast. To my knowledge, there has been no similar commitment specifically geared toward idle reduction at scale in either the U.S. or Canada, before or since.
Sure, there’s SmartWay from the EPA in the U.S., but idle reduction in that program is simply a smaller component in a broader effort regarding fleet efficiencies. And there’s very few if any organizations that have built idle reduction cultures anywhere in the U.S. or Canada (we have, but that's another story). ‘The Idle Free Zone’ was all-in on idle reduction itself and was going to transform a whole country on idling beliefs and behaviors.
Unfortunately, this was before telematics and the ability to effectively measure outcomes, so it was mostly an awareness and ‘feel good’ campaign (which we now know are ineffective when it comes to reducing idling behavior systematically and continuously across populations and fleet operations).
But the fact of the matter was that the government of Canada at the time was convinced that indiscriminate idling of vehicles was worth political capital. It was a greenhouse gas and air quality problem that needed to be dealt with. It was on a formal list of priorities and actions funded by real taxpaying dollars. This is how stuff does or does not get done politically in Canada. And, if the feds are doing it, it greatly influences policy and action at the provincial and municipal levels.
That was then, this is now. ‘The Idle Free Zone’ ran its course, unable to promote a systemic process and results, particularly around tons of carbon reduced and air quality improved on a growing scale. The program petered out in the late 2000’s. I and The Children’s Clean Air Network were frequently cited and published as excellent examples of ‘climate action’ on idle reduction in the program’s glossy, expansive newsletters shipped out coast-to-coast on a regular basis for several years.
In the past 15 years or so, however, indiscriminate idling across Canada has no longer been ‘a thing’ worth funding or serious climate action consideration. As a result, Canadian businesses, families, and government fleets at all levels now have rates of idling between 40% and 60% of engine hours (a well-educated guess based on years of research and observation).
This is annually wasting fuel to the tune of 10s of $Millions across individual provinces, (the idling across my city of Halifax is costing $84 million in fuel) generating 10s of thousands of tons of carbon and exhaust pollution.
It’s literally eviscerating engines and exhaust systems from the inside out due to 100s and 100s of needless engine hours idling when parked. I used to idle at least 185 engine hours per year when unconscious idling was a major activity of my family’s driving lifestyle.
I estimate I’ve saved $5,894 CDN or $4,608 USD in 18 years since I eliminated most of my unconscious, unrequired idling behavior. That’s just the cost of fuel. The wear and tear on my engine and exhaust innards were incalculable by me, but I am positive that service techs could provide some compelling metrics on that too. Especially on lifecycle degradation of my personal vehicles from always idling.
Beyond my own idling habit and cost reductions, how can I be so sure in making these broader claims and metrics about the rest of Canada? It’s with deep perspective now in the fullness of time, and something I call the ‘eyeball’ effect.
I challenge anyone to simply eyeball what’s happening around your town or city. If you take some time to observe idling behavior closely, there is a very good chance that you will be gobsmacked by what you see (and smell). Just like me, you may slap your forehead and say, “Wow! I had no idea this was such a big deal!”
Once you DO see what’s going on, it’s inescapable. Everywhere you look you will see unconscious idling due to vehicle operators’ strong beliefs in three ‘60’s idling’ myths: “idling is good”, “restarts are bad”, “long warmups are good”. These beliefs and behaviors are now firmly entrenched in our collective social consciousness, perpetuating the devastating consequences of poor air quality and carbon emissions with increasing severity, thanks in large part to the zombie-like use of smartphones in parked, idling vehicles. And government fleets leading the idling pack of EMS, construction, last mile delivery and utility fleet vehicles idling everywhere.
Our collective inattention to the idling problem has created a continuous cloud of exhaust hovering over our towns, cities, parking lots, hospitals, recreation facilities, and schools, where our kids are exposed to the dirtiest air in their lifetimes, exacerbating an asthma epidemic across the U.S. and Canada (compared to the 1960s).
It is now the price to be paid by the lack of a policy initiative and funding around reducing idling emissions. As an insider at Natural Resources Canada told me back in 2016, “we’ve been told that idle reduction isn’t sexy anymore. So, we’re shifting our transportation emissions reductions programs into electric vehicles and seeding the market for those, particularly in the bigger provinces.” I was gobsmacked again! (My first ‘gobsmacking’ was when I first realized and saw the idling epidemic myself during my days as a committed ‘Canadian Idler’).
The upshot on that day was how depressing it felt to experience how callously and casually this was explained to me by the federal department which had run ‘The Idle Free Zone’. It’s the day I learned the brutal fact around government and political policy, which is: “if it’s not a policy that is funded the problem may as well not exist.” So, forget about it. But I just couldn’t let it go. I keep seeing polluting tailpipes everywhere generating all that carbon and exhaust pollution. Our kids in our schools and daycares surrounded by idling cars and trucks suffer the most.
So, here we are today in 2023 in a ‘climate crisis”, with greater than 97% of work and personal vehicles on our roads still burning fossil fuels with an unwitting idling public following blindly behind the politicians and their idling government vehicles. This while official policy tells us that indeed, it IS a ‘climate crisis’ but federal policy on the file means millions of idling vehicles across the country are no longer a factor to be concerned with, as they exhort us to reduce carbon as quickly and as efficiently as possible..!
And now, in the fullness of time I can see what policy should be. Educating drivers of personal and fleet vehicles should be a top priority, with effective behavioral science and processes that upgrade their neural pathways in their cerebral cortexes via eLearning programs at scale. It’s all possible today. Individuals can take a behavioral modification program over a period of time that dramatically alters their beliefs and behaviors on idling an engine. Any engine. All we need is that political capital once again.
This will bring Canadian drivers up to speed relatively quickly on how to properly idle manage a 21st Century vehicle and save 40% of their fuel bill from going up in smoke along with the dreadful downstream costs of ‘60’s idling’ beliefs and behaviors. Not least of which is the air quality around our schools.
And no, EVs and ZEVs will not overtake our fossil fuelled idling vehicles any time soon. We now know this too, thanks to the fullness of time.
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