[Rawlco]

I had an idle time of 8.7% during the fall, and over the winter it rose to around 13%. My Fleet Manager said it was the lowest in his fleet by at least ten points. Remember I live in Maine and ran all 48 states for the winter. I frequently spent the night required to idle in temps below ten degrees, and a couple of weekends at home where the daytime temp did not get above 15 degrees and I didn't shut the truck off the entire weekend, even though I was in my house.

A few things to reduce idle time

1) Turn the truck off whenever you can. Fueling, waiting in line, waiting to get loaded, etc.

2) Turn the truck off as soon as you park and leave it off until you can't stand the temperature again. It is almost always an hour or two before the temp gets unbearable except in really hot bright sunshine when even with the truck running the AC can't keep up.

3) Get one of those curtains for the winshield to keep out the sun and keep in the heat in the winter. It also gives you some privacy.

4) Stretch out your trip. If you have all weekend to run 400 miles take one day and run a few hundred miles to get your truck to the temp you want, then take a break for five or six hours before finishing the trip.

5) Park during the most temperate part of the day. During the winter I start my day at 3am and park by 5pm. That way I get to run the truck and make miles during the coldest part of the day, and get several hours in the evening before it gets too cold. During the summer I start late in the morning and run until midnight, getting to sleep during the cooler night and morning.

[Mr. Ford95]

Yes, sitting in traffic can raise your idle %. It's the same as sitting in a rest area or truckstop except you move a few feet every minute.

[bigtimba]

. . the others; 50% isn't a driver problem, that's a Werner problem.

Try the OSHA website and see what they have to say about it. (I'd do it myself but it sounds like you have more free time than I do.) If you can't find it, call them. There have got to be some guidlines, ie acceptable range of temperatures or equipment requirements for extreme temperatures.

Report back with your findings.

[unclehotte]

If they FIRE you for idling the truck......thats a NICE lawsuit waiting to happen. That would be the way I would go, unless you SIGNED something that you are responsible for the idle %.

[TomB985]

Well, let's figure this one out....

Say you run 10,000 miles in a month, that should put your engine time at ~200 hours for the driving time...so you take that and add half of that to your total, that means you idled 100 hours.

100 hours of idling would burn ~150 extra gallons of fuel...which would cost the company something like $600 extra EACH MONTH!

IMHO any idle time even approaching that is downright rediculous. Way too damn often I see drivers who just will not shut their truck down for anyone. Going in the truck stop for a meal, showering, fueling, waiting...cold out, warm out, nice out...daylight, dusk, dawn, night...ALWAYS IDLING. This is WASTE.

Take a night out where it gets down to 50-60 degrees...perfect sleeping weather for most...and walk around the truck stop...a good 1/3rd of the trucks will be idling...for no reason whatsoever.

Does Werner provide you with a bunk heater? That's one way to cut down your idle time. I never idle more than I absolutely have to...just doesn't make any sense to waste that much money.....

[Soladad]

Rawlco...I agree that there are ways a driver can cut it back to the bare bones like you have. But why do we have to submit ourselves to such barbic ways to work and live in our trucks?
I heard an article on Land Line now today concerning working/living conditions and the idle issue that said if other workers in other lines of work had to be in our conditions to work that it would be considered under sweat shop conditions. There is no worker in an office building sitting for long periods of time that would be able to keep up production when it is over 75 or under 45.
At home, people would be considered under slum conditions. Again why do we need to live differently than the rest of the world? Where is our constitutional rights?

[Drew10]

ekaddon wrote:

So i phone him up. my ears have been raped.

If that is you first "offense" he could have been more considerate of his admonishment. Also, if this is typical of your FM to go off on you like that have you discussed this with his superiors. There is no need for that kind of admonishment as you describe it.
Regarding the idling, I agree with the others saying that you are not getting enough miles (drive time) to knock the idle time down. This is a reflection of the Load Planners and your FM, not you. Unless your idling unnecessarily.
In the "peak" of the heat or cold, when idling is almost always necessary, then even on the perfect drive days (10-11hrs) with a 10 hour break over-idling would still be at or near 50%.
This time of year its generally good sleeping weather, Ill idle only for about 3hrs of my break before sleep, just for the "hotel" power to run TV, Laptop, Burton stove etc. then shutdown while sleeping. My idle time is still around 30%.
From what Ive "heard" about some of the other companies, Werners idle policy is still pretty liberal.

Pack_Rat wrote:

They had better look into and APU i would think then.

Werner is installing APU's on their trucks. But, a company this big is going to take awhile "outfit" the entire fleet. I believe the new trucks are being ordered with APU installed from the factory (speculation) and am seeing them more and more on the trucks, mostly on the Peterbilt Aeros and the T600's

[flood]

Originally Posted by hitman

Does sitting in traffic have any bearing on your idle time, or can they tell the difference?

yes and no.. most trucks don't count idle if the yellow knob is in...
our volvo changes to idle when you pull the yellow BUT not when you pull the red.

for us it's a trade off pull the yellow and idle goes up pull just the red and our mpg go down and we lose out performance bonus.

[Jumbo]

It does surprise me how many drivers pull up for the fuel pumps then let the truck idle when they go inside. that five minutes here and there adds up. Our boss asks that if the truck is going to idle more than a couple minutes to shut them off.

[Malaki86]

It's also extremely bad on your turbo to shut the truck down immediately after pulling off the interstate. If the turbo fins are still spinning when you shut down the engine, you cut off the oil supply, hence frying the bearings. It takes 5-10mins of idling to cool down the bearings. So, in 10 mins I can be refueled and back out on the road.