Ottawa, Canada – The federal government has outlined further investment plans to improve the environmental performance of the Canadian transportation sector, bundling funding for sustainable freight and personal vehicles with a previously announced program under the new “ecoTransport Strategy”.

The Strategy includes the recently announced ‘ecoMobility program’, a potential $10 million investment over four years to support public transit and sustainable transportation options for Canadian cities. The funding will go towards collaborative research, development of professional resources, implementation of cost-shared pilot projects, and dissemination of information to encourage people to reduce car use, increase transit ridership, and promote alternative options such as car-pooling.

See: $1.5B EcoTrust Program announced

Added to that previous announcement are the ‘ecoTechnology for Vehicles Program’, the ‘ecoENERGY for Personal Vehicles Program’, and the ‘ecoFreight program’.

The ecoTechnology program will provide up to $15 million in funding for testing of environmentally friendly technologies for light-duty vehicles, and promotion of low-emissions vehicles will also be undertaken through partnerships with the automotive industry.

The ecoENERGY for Personal Vehicles Program will spend up to $21 million to provide fuel consumption information and tools to encourage consumers to purchase currently available fuel-efficient.

The ecoFreight initiative will provide up to $61 million to reduce air pollution from freight transportation, by “accelerating adoption of emissions-reducing technology”.

Program components include:

• A National Harmonization Initiative for the Trucking Industry to identify regulatory barriers and solutions to help the Canadian trucking industry adopt emissions-reducing technologies.

  
  

• ecoENERGY for Fleets, to reduce fuel use and emissions in commercial and institutional fleets via training, sharing of best practices, anti-idling campaigns, and technical analysis to look for potential improvements and other technology opportunities.

  
  

• Freight Technology Demonstration Fund: cost-shared demonstrations to test and measure new and underused freight transportation technologies in real-world conditions.

  
  

• Freight Technology Incentives Program: cost-shared funding to companies and non-profit associations in freight transportation to help them to purchase and install proven emission-reducing technologies.

  
  

• ecoFreight Partnerships: partnerships within the transportation sector to reduce emissions from freight transportation through voluntary actions.

  
  

• Marine Shore Power: demonstrating the use of shore-based power (known as’cold-ironing’) - for marine vessels in Canadian ports.

Details on the ecoTransport strategy are available here.

Road transportation in Canada accounted for around 145 Megatonnes (Mt) of greenhouse gas emissions in 2004 – 19% of the national total. Of that amount, 34% (49.8 Mt) was from light-duty gasoline vehicles, or personal cars, and 30% (43.6 Mt) was from light-duty trucks, including sport-utility vehicles and pickup trucks. Heavy-duty diesel vehicles, which comprise most of the commercial shipping fleet, accounted for 31% (44.9 Mt).

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For More Information: Transport Canada