UPS has announced plans to build 15 compressed natural gas (CNG) fuelling stations to support the purchase and planned deployment of 1,400 new CNG vehicles over the next year to April 2016. Of the CNG stations, 12 will be in new natural gas vehicle deployment areas and three will replace existing CNG stations with more robust, higher capacity equipment.
This purchase represents a nearly 30% increase to UPS’s current alternative fuel and advanced technology fleet of 5,088 vehicles worldwide. The CNG fuelling stations and vehicle purchases are part of UPS’ plans to diversify its fuel sources, implement a fleet infrastructure that can utilize lower carbon intensity fuel sources and increase experience using alternative fuels in freight transport applications.
“UPS’s investment in a large scale alternative energy fleet has enabled the company to avoid more than 34m gallons of conventional fuels since 2000,” said Mitch Nichols, UPS Senior Vice President of Transportation and Engineering. “Today’s CNG announcement demonstrates UPS’s plans to expand use of widely available natural gas. CNG is an important building block in our long-term fleet strategy and offers environmental and economic advantages.”
UPS plans to deploy new CNG vehicles in 15 more US cities. Currently UPS already has a total of eight CNG fuelling stations in California, Colorado, Georgia and Oklahoma in the US and operates CNG vehicles in Germany, the Netherlands and Thailand.
