Wal-Mart to cut SoCal truck emissions, joins clean truck association

Wal-Mart to cut SoCal truck emissions, joins clean truck association Retail giant Wal-Mart Monday said it's committed to having trucks operated by the retailer's Southern California drayage providers meet truck emission standards defined by the Southern California ports.
   Wal-Mart also said it has joined the Sacramento-based Coalition for Responsible Transportation, an association of transportation firms pledging to implement clean truck technologies in their operations at the adjacent ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
   The Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart said it would review all of its Southern California ports-servicing logistics providers to make sure the firms are meeting the port standards. Since 2002, Wal-Mart has shifted much of its cargo from the two ports to other facilities on the West and East coasts. Where the firm once sent more than half of its imports through Southern California, it now moves about 10 percent of its total imports through Los Angeles and Long Beach. Despite this, the retailer's container volumes still make it one of the leading shippers, by volume, operating through the two ports.
   In December, retailer J.C. Penney and PDS, a subsidiary of Concord, Calif.-based Pacer International, said the two would join the CRT and commit to replacing all of their contracted owner-operator trucks in use at the two ports with new low-emission 'green' equipment that will meet the ports' self-defined emission standards well before the ports-defined 2012 deadline.
   The CRT roster also includes Home Depot, California Multimodal Inc., NYK Group Cos., the Target Corp., Total Transportation Services Inc., Nike, and Southern Counties Express Inc.
   In October, Nike, and its affiliate Converse switched a portion of their Southern California ports drayage fleet from diesel to new liquefied natural gas-fueled vehicles.
   A month earlier, Target Corp. announced that it would be introducing LNG vehicles into its fleet servicing the two ports.