Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) Fleets in Southern California: Variations in Vehicles and Route Types

A number of vehicle fleets around the world have transitioned to compressed natural gas (CNG), but public refueling stations remains sparse away from fleet depots. Given the varied vehicle and route types of fleets, empirical data on their use of public refueling stations is important to understand, because like consumers, fleet drivers face range anxiety and their driving and refueling habits inform key assumptions important to station location. The authors surveyed 127 drivers of CNG fleet vehicles in Los Angeles at six stations across the metropolitan area. The key survey questions concerned the stops immediately before and after refueling, habituality of refueling away from base and fuel tank levels before refueling. The authors demonstrate that regardless of fleet or vehicle type, drivers deviate up to six minutes in order to refuel, and they also do not exhibit significant differences in fuel tank levels at the time of refueling. The authors also observe that 35% of fleet drivers surveyed indicated they were solely reliant upon away-from-base refueling for their operations, but there is variation between vehicle types. These findings demonstrate that fleet drivers do consider station locations away from their base when refueling, and they also indicate that assumptions made within facility location models with respect to fuel tank level and deviation thresholds do not necessarily have to consider the differences in vehicle or route type when employed at a metropolitan or regional scale.

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• Supplemental Notes:
  • Alternate title: Compressed Natural Gas Fleets in Southern California: Variations in Vehicles and Route Types. This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ADC80 Alternative Transportation Fuels and Technologies.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Kelley, Scott
  • Kuby, Michael
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 94th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2015-1-11 to 2015-1-15
• Date: 2015

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 14p
• Monograph Title: TRB 94th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Compressed natural gas; Drivers; Natural gas vehicles; Refueling; Route choice; Service stations; Surveys; Vehicle fleets
• Geographic Terms: Los Angeles (California)
• Subject Areas: Energy; Highways; Planning and Forecasting; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01551346
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 15-3584
• Files: PRP, TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Jan 27 2015 11:22AM