Idle reduction describes practices and technologies that reduce the time drivers idle their engines unnecessarily. Reducing idling time has many benefits, including reductions in fuel costs, engine wear, emissions and noise pollution.
Each year, U.S. passenger cars, light trucks, medium-duty trucks, and heavy-duty vehicles consume more than 6 billion gallons of fuel – without moving. Roughly half of that fuel is wasted by passenger cars (1). Idling can be reduced without compromising driver comfort or safety. For more information and tools, please visit the Department of Energy's Idle Reduction site for the Idlebox 2.0 Toolkit.
1. Gonder, Jeffrey; Matthew Earleywine; and Witt Sparks. National Renewable Energy Laboratory. “Analyzing Vehicle Fuel Saving Opportunities through Intelligent Driver Feedback.” http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy12osti/53864.pdf March 2011.
In addition to these behavior changes, you can also look into purchasing a more fuel efficient vehicle, such as a hybrid or new vehicle that gets better miles per gallon than some older models.
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