Glendale’s Green Fleet Plan Calls for Hybrids, EVs, and Right-Sizing

GLENDALE, CA – The City of Glendale, Calif. plans to implement a new plan called “Greener Glendale,” which will involve ongoing changes to the fleet in the years to come. The plan establishes a number of “green” objectives for the City’s fleet, including establishing a formal green fleet policy by 2012, increasing fleet fuel efficiency, reducing fleet use of fossil fuels, and increasing employee rideshare participation.

According to the Greener Glendale plan, the City began developing a green fleet plan in 2010 but hasn’t formalized it in the municipal code. The plan emphasizes use of alternative fuels in City vehicles, Partial Zero Emissions gasoline engines, hybrids, right-sizing vehicles, and consolidating departmental operations where possible.

To increase fleet fuel efficiency, the Greener Glendale emphasizes specific vehicle replacement actions. For example the plan has a goal of replacing eight older and/or underused vehicles in the immediate term, replace 30 additional older/underused vehicles with new models by 2020, and lastly downsizing 50 vehicles in the fleet by 2020. Downsizing would involve replacing larger vehicles with smaller ones where applicable. In addition, the Greener Glendale plan has a goal of implementing an idle-control policy, which it says will affect approximately 200 vehicles in the fleet, excluding emergency response vehicles and those where the engine must stay on for the vehicle to operate, for example a forklift.

To reduce the fossil fuel used by City vehicles in additional ways, the Greener Glendale plan states the City will use B-10 and B-20 biodiesel in all of its diesel-powered vehicles and equipment, replace 35 conventional vehicles with electric vehicles, and replace 50 additional conventional vehicles with hybrids.

One other plan the City intends to implement is to re-pave roads in Glendale so they have a pavement condition index (PCI) of 74.6 and eventually higher. The plan states that higher PCI roads increase fuel efficiency for the vehicles driving on them.

By Greg Basich