Heavy Duty Trucking, June 2018

Under the leadership of President and CEO Royal Jones Mesilla Valley Transportation has become well known for pushing the fuel economy envelope A NACFE Run on Less participant the latest mpg boosters in the MVT fleet include aero skirts on 100 of its trailers as well as trailer boat tails aero wheel cover wheel gap coverings on tandems and a very narrow under 24 inches tractor trailer gap Also MVT rolls on low rolling resistance tires taps solar power to charge electric APUs and has worked to cut the parasitic drag on its tractors MVT began relying on Bears InnoMetric MPG operation in 2012 to carry out high tech testing of various new fuel efficiency solutions The fleet had tried other available test types but found nothing was easier or more cost effective than the methods Bear had developed by adapting what hed learned as a race engineer including for the Indy Racing League Bear launched his racing career in 2007 a few years after earning an engineering degree from Torontos Ryerson University Working with MVT led to the formation in 2016 of MVTS which makes the trucking oriented testing the two companies developed available to other fleets Bear says MVT Solutions applies highly portable technology developed to measure the performance of race cars to testing fuel efficiency solutions on trucks accurately and quickly We learned trucking was limited by a lack of reliable information on fuel savings thanks to methodologies he says To resolve this InnoMetric developed a high tech fuel efficiency testing method that uses fleet vehicles and technology adopted from race engineering Our team worked day and night creating the program performing tests at night and data analysis and engineering during the day Once the testing program was refined it was introduced to MVT which found that it could get reliable answers in a matter of hours As a result the MVT fleet was able to test more than 100 technologies and spec adjustments in just two years Bear says the MVT Solutions technology is a whole new generation of testing especially compared to the SAE TMC Type II in service fuel consumption test procedures that have been used going back to the 1980s He says the older methodology HDT JUNE 2018 60 WWW TRUCKINGINFO COM We want to make sure we have the right product by completing our due diligence he adds Thats the thinking behind conducting testing of new equipment like aero devices on our own trucks I think because we have a culture of yes we get a lot of opportunities to look at things before other fleets do Vesey says the fleet wants to know when there is a product that could save us money on fuel and then get it tested as soon as possible When we get into a test arrangement with a supplier it requires honesty in both directions We make sure the supplier will make their engineering support available to us during the test And when its over if the results are positive then we decide if making the change will benefit our bottom line Testing improves the breed When it comes to understanding fuel efficiency theres a real gap out there between what suppliers know and what fleets can learn says Daryl Bear lead engineer and COO of MVT Solutions LLC We work to fill that gap MVTS is a partnership formed by Bear and Mesilla Valley Transportation It grew out of the advanced fuel economy testing that Bears InnoMetric MPG firm performed over several years for the Las Cruces New Mexico based truckload carrier Mesilla Valley Transportation itself has become well known for pushing the fuel economy envelope A NACFE Run for Less participant the latest mpg boosters in the MVT fleet include aero skirts on 100 of its trailers as well as trailer boat tails aero wheel cover wheel gap coverings on tandems and a very narrow under 24 inches tractor trailer gap PHOTO MVT SOLUTIONS The industry needs to do a better job of getting the word out on what works for fuel efficiency Daryl Bear MTV Solutions CUTTING EDGE MPG