UPS Canada announced this week it will be rolling out 139 additional cleaner-burning, propanedelivery trucks to join the roughly 600 propane trucks already operating in Canada. More than a
third of UPS Canada’s 2,000 package delivery vehicles will run on low-carbon fuel in future.The majority of the propane vehicles will be deployed in Quebec, Ontario and Alberta and therest distributed between British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
“UPS Canada has been a leader in deploying alternative fuel vehicles since 1985,” said UPSCanada Vice President of Automotive, Steve Clark. “This deployment demonstrates UPS’s continuedcommitment to running our business in a responsible manner.”
The 139 new propane trucks are expected to reduce UPS’s carbon dioxide emissions by a totalof 254 metric tonnes per year, the equivalent weight of 80 UPS trucks. This would be a 35 per centimprovement compared to conventional gas engines. Additionally, particulate matter emitted fromvehicles will be virtually eliminated.
In the 1980s, the propane trucks currently in UPS Canada’s fleet were converted from gasolineand diesel to run on alternative fuels. The new trucks are now originally manufactured foralternative fuel use.
The UPS propane vehicles will run on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) provided at eight on-sitefuelling stations at UPS facilities in Canada. LPG is derived from petroleum during oil or naturalgas processing and is cleaner-burning than regular gasoline.
The newly added propane-powered vehicles feature the latest technology in clean-burningpropane engines. Propane vehicles emit about one-third fewer reactive organic gases thangasoline-fuelled vehicles. Nitrogen oxide and carbon monoxide emissions are 20 per cent and 60 percent less, respectively, than conventional vehicles.
UPS’s global alternative-fuel fleet now stands at 1,629 vehicles – the largest such privatefleet in the transportation industry – and includes compressed natural gas, liquefied natural gas,propane and electric and hybrid electric vehicles. UPS is also working with the U.S. EnvironmentalProtection Agency on a hydraulic hybrid delivery vehicle.
