The package carrier is also adding 330 terminal trucks as part of a $130 million dollar investment in CNG capacity for 2018 that builds on prior investments of $100 million dollars in 2016 and $90 million dollars last year.
All told, UPS will have invested more than $1 billion in alternative fuel and advanced technology vehicles and fueling stations in the last 10 years.
Carlton Rose, UPS president of global fleet maintenance and engineering, says the company has demonstrated the effectiveness of natural gas vehicles and in 2017 used 77 million total gallon equivalents in its ground fleet.
“UPS is a catalyst for wide scale adoption of natural gas vehicles,” Rose says.
The five new CNG stations will be in Goodyear, Ariz., Plainfield, Ind., Edgerton, Kan., Fort Worth, Texas, and Arlington, Texas. Four hundred semi-tractors will be supplied by Freightliner and Kenworth. The 330 terminal trucks will come from TICO.
UPS plans to deploy the new CNG vehicles on routes to utilize the new CNG stations while also adding to existing natural gas fleets in other UPS locations including Atlanta, Ga., and, Salt Lake City, Utah.
UPS currently operates more than 50 natural gas fueling stations strategically located across the U.S., and, outside the U.S. in Vancouver, Canada, and Tamworth, United Kingdom.
The initiative will help UPS reach its 2020 goal of one in four new vehicles purchased being an alternative fuel or advanced technology vehicle. The company has also set a goal of replacing 40 percent of all ground fuel with sources other than conventional gasoline and diesel. These goals support UPS’s commitment to reduce its GHG emissions from global ground operations 12 percent by 2025.
