The BC Trucking Association is launching the CleanBC Heavy-duty Vehicle Efficiency Course, with a session planned in Kamloops on December 10.

BCTA President Dave Earle says it’s a prerequisite for truckers to qualify for $1.4 million in rebates each year for the next three years towards buying fuel-efficient equipment and technology.

“The course itself is available to any employee of any carrier in British Columbia. Not just BCTA members, but anybody. It’s a one day course, and what it talks about is the impact that our sector has on greenhouse gas emissions.”

Earle says participants will learn how to improve their fuel economy, and how to measure their progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and so he’s urging truckers to try new things that could help in the fight against climate change.

“Everything from moving to single wide based tires instead of running dual tires, aerodynamic devices on trailers, also the side-fairings, predictive cruise control, automated transmissions – all of them are well researched, and well documented by third parties to have an impact on fuel economy.”

He also believes this new technology on trucks will not only be good for the environment, it will help reduce costs for truckers.

“The hardest thing on fuel economy is elevation change, and so this technology has been proven in other jurisdictions. And our push behind this is to allow individuals and companies to try things here, to try different technologies, and to get out there and take a risk where they perhaps wouldn’t have before.”

Registration for the course is now open, and there are also sessions in Langley on November 26, and on December 3 and 4. Additional sessions in Langley and Prince George in January and February 2020 will follow.