In 2002, the Gateway Cities Council of Governments (GCCOG) implemented the Gateway Cities Clean Air Program (Program) as a pilot effort to reduce emissions from heavy-duty vehicles and equipment. Initiated by the (GCCOG) and the Port of Long Beach POLB)the original focus was to reduce emissions of oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and particulate matter (PM) from diesel-fueled vehicles and equipment operating at the Port of Long Beach, Port of Los Angeles, and its 27 member cities. However, the Program quickly grew into a wider regional effort targeting emissions reductions from in-use heavy duty vehicles throughout the entire four-county jurisdiction of the SCAQMD. The three elements of the Program include replacement of off-road equipment, installation of particulate traps on port-fleet vehicles, and diesel truck fleet modernization. The fleet modernization component offsets the cost of replacing older on-road heavy-duty diesel vehicles with newer, lower-emission diesel vehicles.
A total number of 33 awards in the amount of $1,193,851 were granted. An additional $39,462 was allocated to the AVL units.
The project was divided into three tasks:
1) The development of an outreach plan to target interested truckers. The plan consisted of the development and distribution of fliers in Fontana and near marine terminals, outreach workshops, and a "Trucker Wanted" owner-operator workshop event at Harbor Community College.
2) Implementation and administration of the program including review and processing of application and awarding grants; providing assistance to owners of eligible vehicles; and working with program dealers, vendors and scrap yards.
3) Monitoring, documentation and reporting. Monthly reporting included but was not limited to; the model of replaced truck, vocation in which truck was used, base/garage location, average anuual miles of replacement truck over the past two years, model year of replacement truck, amount of incentive, projected annual emissions of new truck and cost-effectiveness.
The purpose of this project is to fund a portion of the GCCOG's fleet modernization program which focuses on replacement of 1986 or older high-polluting heavy-duty vehicles . These vehicles are typically owned by truckers who cannot afford to purchase newer/cleaner vehicles. The GCCOG's program offers incentives to truckers to modernize their rigs. As a funding requirement, all replacement trucks will be equipped with automated vehicle locators to track mileage on trucks for purposes of emissions reductions tracking. Replaced vehicles will be scrapped.
Each replacement truck is 35% to 50% lower emitting for NOx and 80% lower for PM10 than the truck it replaced. One of the biggest issues encountered with the project was the performance and availabilty of the AVL units by Satellite Security Systems (S3). Unfortunately, as the project progressed S3 declared bankrupcy and was unable to provide additional units or report data from the existing units. As the satellite reporting was a requirement of the MSRC contract, the project was discontinued. GCCOG continues to gather manual reporting data from the truckers as feasible.