A thesis submitted to the
Integrated Science and Technology Program
at James Madison University
in fulfillment of ISAT - 491/492/493
as a capstone project
April 15, 2011
By
Jamison R. Walker
Matthew L. Heintz
under the faculty guidance of
Dr. Anne Henriksen, Ph.D.
Overview
 Introduction
 Sponsors and Partners
 Background
 Statement of Problem
 Objectives
 Methodology
 Assumptions
 Results
 Discussion
 Conclusions
 Future Work
 Unanticipated
Challenges
 Acknowledgements
 References
 Questions
Sponsors and Partners
 Department of Energy – Clean Cities Program
 Virginia Clean Cities – Provided $50,000 in grant
funds through Environmental Protection Agency’s
Clean School Bus Program. Acted as project managers.
“Virginia Clean Cities is a not-for-profit governmentindustry program that works to reduce Virginia’s
dependence on petroleum and for cleaner air.”
 Chelsea Jenkins – Executive Director
 Ryan Cornett – Outreach Coordinator
Sponsors and Partners
 Virginia Beach Public Schools
 Robert Clinebell – Fleet Manager until November 2010
 Curtis Barger – Fleet Manager since November 2010
 Albemarle County Public Schools
 Josh Davis – Director of Transportation
 Christine Martinez – Fleet Manager
 Virginia Mobile Air-Conditioning Systems, Incorporated
 Scott Faivre – President
 Webasto North America
 Paul Baczewski – National Account Manager - School Division
Background – What Is Idling?
 Idling an engine means that the engine is consuming
fuel just enough to keep itself and its accessories
running.
 Idle Reduction – Any technology or method used to
reduce the amount of time heavy-duty trucks and
school buses idle their engines.
Background – Technologies
 Fuel-Operated Heaters
 A heat exchanger that warms an
engine’s coolant fluid and circulates it
to warm the engine and blow warm air
into the passenger compartment.
www.espar.com/Images/img_pr_coolant2.jpg
 NOT an auxiliary power unit
 Tied into main fuel line
 Compared to idling the engine


Uses much less fuel
Emits far fewer emissions
 Provides heat faster
http://www.espar.com/Images/img_incopy_bu.jpg
Background – Technologies

TSL-17
 Compared to idling


Uses 1/8th the amount of fuel
Emits 1/20th the amount of emissions
Images taken from the TSL-17 user manual ©Webasto
Background – Technologies
 GPS Units
 EveryDay Solutions, Inc.


Everywhere Light
“A powerful Automatic Vehicle Location Application.”
 Tracks school buses and keeps historical record of data

We used one of its capabilities – Engine Idling Characteristics
 Generates a report that uses equations as a function of
constants and variables based on idling time, fuel
consumption rate, fuel price and emission rates to calculate
fuel cost due to idling and total emissions.
The Problem
 Driver behavior
 Fuel consumption – 1.3 gallons per hour
 0.64 gallons per hour (Argonne National Lab)
 Emissions – CO, CO2, HC, PM, NOx
 Associated costs
 Environmental and economic impacts
Objectives
 Determine effectiveness of fuel-operated heaters
 Validate manufacturer’s claims
 Estimate theoretical values for reductions in fuel
consumption, emissions and associated costs.
 Act as a successful decision-making tool
Methodology
 Prior to our involvement
 Initial proposal originated in 2008
 Distributor was chosen – VMACS, Inc.
 Fuel-Operated Heater was chosen – Webasto TSL-17
 Virginia Beach Public Schools joined project
 Gloucester County Public Schools verbally committed to
joining project
 Our first steps
 Order and have heaters installed for Virginia Beach
 Secure second participant


Gloucester County backed out
Chose Albemarle County to join in September 2010
Methodology
 Procuring the heaters
 Ordered from and installed by VMACS, Inc.
 Price: $1,659.62 + $400 for installation per heater
 Ten heaters for Virginia Beach - $20,596.20


Ordered on April 26, 2010
Installed in July 2010
 Fourteen heaters for Albemarle County - $28,834.68


Ordered on October 28, 2010
Installed by December 1, 2010
Methodology – Acquiring Data
 Virginia Beach Public Schools
 Idling Summary Reports were exported from Everywhere
Light® into Microsoft Excel® by the Fleet Manager
 Emailed to us intermittently
 Albemarle County Public Schools
 Idling Summary Reports were exported and gathered by
us personally on site
 All data were organized and stored using Dropbox®
Methodology – Analyzing Data
 Selecting control groups
 Virginia Beach


Chosen by comparable MPGs
Chosen by comparable idling times
 Albemarle County
 Chosen by comparable MPGs
 Setting up Summary Sheets
 Virginia Beach

Sorted by Group into Before and After data
 Albemarle County
 Sorted into Before and After data
 Used arrays in Summary Sheet to lookup data in Before and
After sheets
Assumptions
 Idling uses 1.3 gal/hour
 Idling emissions rates:
 CO – 41 g/hr
 NOx – 109 g/hr
 HC – 8 g/hr
 CO2 – 5,846 g/hr
 PM – 0.35 g/hr
 Excessive Idling Threshold – 10 minutes
 The difference between the before and after data is due
to using the heater instead of idling the engine.
Results – Virginia Beach
 See files on Dropbox…
Results – VB Idle Characteristics
Experimental Group
Average Idling Duration (MM:SS)
Before Installation
58:28
After Installation
41:48
Reduction
16:40 (28.5%)
Average Idling Occurrences
Before Installation
3.28
After Installation
2.42
Reduction
0.86
(26.1%)
Results – VB Emissions Reductions
Experimental Group
CO
NOx
HC
CO2
PM
Before
39.9
106.2
7.79
5,695.9
0.344
After
28.6
75.9
5.57
4,072.1
0.245
Reduction
11.4
30.3
2.22
1,623.8
0.098
(28.5%)
Results – VB Avoided Costs
Before Costs – Experimental Group
Total Cost of Fuel Used for Idling
Total Idling Duration (HHH:MM:SS)
Cost/Hour of Idling
Average Fuel Price/Gallon (based on 1.3 gal/hr)
$545.20
189:33:22
$2.88
$2.21
After Costs – Experimental Group
Total Cost of Fuel Used for Idling
Total Idling Duration (HHH:MM:SS)
Cost/Hour of Idling
Average Fuel Price/Gallon (based on 1.3 gal/hr)
$512.73
134:17:27
$3.82
$2.94
Difference in Average Fuel Price/Gallon
$0.73
Average Measured Cost/Day (Before)
Average Measured Cost/Day (After)
Difference in Cost/Day
$2.80
$2.67
$0.13
If average fuel price stayed at $2.21 for After, the After Cost/Day would be:
Savings per bus per day:
Savings per day for ten buses:
Savings for 5 months of use (5 days/wk)(4 wks/mo):
Simple Payback Period ($20,000 initial investment):
$2.00
$0.80
$8.00
$800.00
25 years
Results – Virginia Beach
Average Daily Idling Time per Bus (H:MM:SS)
Average Daily Idle Time Before and After Heater Installation
1:00:00
0:50:00
0:58:28
0:56:37
Before
0:50:48
0:47:23
After
0:41:48
0:40:00
0:36:08
0:30:00
0:20:00
0:10:00
MPG Control Group
Idling Time Control Group
Experimental Group
Results – Virginia Beach
Percentage Decrease of Average Daily Idling Time
0%
-5%
-10%
-10.3%
-15%
-20%
-23.7%
-25%
-28.5%
-30%
MPG Control Group
Idling Time Control Group
Experimental Group
Results – Virginia Beach
Emissions Before and After Heater Installation (Exp. Group)
45
Average Daily Emission per Bus (g)
40
120
9
106.2
39.9
8
6,000
5,695
7.79
100
0.35
5,000
35
7
4,072
30
28.6
80
75.9
25
6
5.57
0.40
4,000
0.34
0.30
0.25
0.24
Before
5
60
3,000
20
0.20
After
4
15
40
3
10
0.15
2,000
0.10
2
20
1,000
5
0.05
1
0
0
CO
0
NOx
0
HC
0.00
CO2
PM
Results – Virginia Beach
Percentage Decrease of Emissions by Group
0%
-5%
-10%
CO2
-10.3%
-15%
NOx
-20%
CO
HC
-25%
-23.7%
-30%
PM
-28.5%
-35%
MPG Control Group
Idling Time Control Group
Experimental Group
Results – Virginia Beach
Average Daily Cost of Fuel Used on Idling
Before and After Heater Installation
$3.50
Average Daily Cost per Bus
$3.22
$3.00
$2.80
$2.73
$2.50
$2.28
$2.67
$2.28
$2.00
Before
$1.50
After
$1.00
$0.50
$0.00
MPG Control Group
Idling Time Control Group
Experimental Group
Results – Virginia Beach
Average Daily Excessive Idling Occurrences per Bus
Average Daily Excessive Idling Occurrences
Before and After Heater Installation
3.50
3.00
3.28
2.94
2.99
2.50
2.42
2.38
2.05
2.00
Before
After
1.50
1.00
0.50
0.00
MPG Control Group
Idling Time Control Group
Experimental Group
Results – Virginia Beach
Percentage Increase/Decrease of
Average Daily Cost of Fuel Used on Idling
20%
17.7%
15%
10%
5%
0%
-0.1%
-5%
-4.8%
-10%
MPG Control Group
Idling Time Control Group
Experimental Group
Results – Albemarle County
 See files on Dropbox…
Discussion – Virginia Beach
 Heaters essentially eliminated morning idle
occurrences and sometimes an afternoon occurrence
depending on a given bus’s schedule.
 This led to nearly one (0.86) less idling occurrence(s)
per day = 16 min 40 sec
 Idle duration decrease validates theory of driver idling
behavior that drivers idle between 15 to 30 minutes preroute.
Discussion – Virginia Beach
 Important to note that our results are very conservative
given our fuel consumption rate of 1.3 gallons/hour.
 For results based on Argonne rate simply divide in half
 Also, important to note that the 10 minute threshold
didn’t account for any idle occurrence less than 10
minutes.
 Depending on route type a bus could have several
accumulated short idle occurrences that are
immeasurable.
 Could account for 10%, 30%, 50% of total idling?
Discussion – Albemarle County
 We didn’t see congruent results due to lack of archived
before data because of the late start on data acquisition.
 The observed six-minute decrease was comparing
different months with different temperatures and idling
characteristics, whereas, Virginia Beach used same
months from previous year.
 After installation results were similar to results
observed from Virginia Beach.
Conclusions
 While the heaters did prove to reduce idling fuel costs
and emissions by a significant percentage, based on
their initial costs, we did not find the heaters to be cost
effective in the short term. (25 year simple payback)
 Although, as the fuel price goes up, the heaters
become more cost effective because they save more
money per unit of fuel.
 For a 5 year payback period, fuel price would need to be
$11.05 per gallon
 For a 10 year payback period, fuel price would need to be
$5.53 per gallon
Conclusions
 Heaters can become more cost effective the more they
are used. (e.g. colder climates)
 Although savings proved to be ineffective
economically, if the environmental benefits cover the
extra costs then it could be worth it.
 Emissions due to idling were decreased 28.5%. To
achieve the same results without the heaters, an
engine would need to be 28.5% more efficient while
idling.
Future Work
 Perform more and different trials
 In colder locations
 On fleets with different route types
 Choose control groups based on similar route types
 Continue data acquisition with Albemarle County
 Use real-world values obtained through actual
measurements instead of theoretical values
 Can be used as a decision-making tool
 Will be a successful case study
Unanticipated Challenges
 Gloucester dropout
 Securing a second participant
 Depending on external sources for data
 Personnel change in Virginia Beach
 Administrative software access restrictions in
Albemarle County
 Formatting compatibility between programs
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank all of our sponsors and partners
for their patience, cooperation and understanding.
This would not have been possible without you!!!
VMACS, Inc.
References
 Virginia Clean Cities. (2010). Virginia Clean Cities.
Retrieved April 23, 2010, from http://hrccc.org
 Espar. (2010). Espar – Coolant Heaters. Retrieved April
23, 2010, from
http://www.espar.com/html/products/coolantheaters.
html
 Virginia Clean Cities. (2009). Draft Quality Assurance
Project Plan.
 Argonne National Laboratory. (n.d) How Much Could
You Save By Idling Less?
Questions?
http://virulentwordofmouse.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/questions.jpg