UPS! 200 Million Miles of Green Deliveries

As one of the largest fleet operators in the world, UPS is currently facing, as do all other companies, a very stringent problem: fuel price. With the numbers at the pump apparently engaged in some type of competition with one another, companies the size of UPS are facing more and more financial strain.

Luckily, this company in particular planned ahead. UPS is currently among the few fleet operators to work with a great number of alternative fuel vehicles (called by UPS AFV - alternative fuel vehicles). Using those vehicles has proven both cost effective and eco-conscious, reports UPS.

According to the data compiled by the shipping company, to date 200 million miles have been covered by the green transport vehicles. Since 200, the date when UPS bought the first such vehicle, the fleet grew to a total of 1,900. An extra 62 will be added in the near future.

The fleet of green vehicles used by UPS (and at the same time tested) includes all sorts of alternative-powered machines you can think of: Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) tractors, Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) and propane vehicles, hybrid-electric vehicles and so on. In all, says UPS, eight different types of power sources were tested in the years that have passed.

"At UPS, we expand our alternative fuel fleet using a rolling laboratory approach,"  said Mike Britt, UPS's director of vehicle engineering. "Our alternative fuel fleet teaches us how new technologies and advancements can be adapted for use in a large delivery fleet. UPS puts new technologies in settings where they are most effective and most efficient."