Transport committee  Thank you very much. I thank the committee for the invitation to speak to you this morning. First I want to give you a little bit of a frame of reference, so I will introduce myself and our association and tell you what we do and what our focus is. I have been in the truck manu

Transport committee  I think as I was commenting, our industry is very much pushed by the user. Really, if there is demand for a lot of the technologies that have already been developed, they will come up with solutions. In many of these components, you speak of the side guards. Currently in North Am

Transport committee  Very briefly, as far as the U.S. is concerned, we're very much a follower because of harmonization and because they're the big elephant to the south. There are regulations, but typically we are staying pretty much in lockstep. The current regulatory process to adopt their regulat

Transport committee  As far as current regulations are concerned, we really don't have any significant issues with anything that exists right now. We've solved most of those issues, gotten over many of those hurdles. And as long as it stays the focus of the governments—Transport Canada, the DOT in th

Transport committee  Particularly when we're talking about the efficiencies, alternative fuels, emissions, etc., I think infrastructure's probably our biggest issue there, and not necessarily the government spending a bunch of money on infrastructure but at least providing for some allowance possibly

Transport committee  That's one area. I know there's been an awful lot of effort because our whole way of regulating is so different, between ourselves and the Europeans. It's a lot easier with the U.S. They've got a self-certification process, as do we. They use the same SAE-based regulations as we

Transport committee  I don't know that I'm the right one to ask. Really it's the end-users who are going to be able to tell you that. From the information I know of, it does work. Again, our members aren't the ones installing these. However, that may be changing somewhat, because, for instance, Gene

Transport committee  Do they actually manufacture the vehicle itself to use natural gas? No.

Transport committee  No. Those are people I'm going to be talking to, but no.

Transport committee  No.

Transport committee  There aren't really any specific technologies that we promote. Primarily they're tools for getting specific jobs done, and there are a lot of specialty products within our members' product range. It depends on the job, really.

Transport committee  The things I look at among the technologies that will be involved in reducing greenhouse gas and improving fuel economy are twofold.

Transport committee  One is having aerodynamic treatments put on a broader range of vehicles that are at least running at highway speeds; in other words, really on the trailer side—hauling freight, hauling goods. On the other side, on the vocational truck side, it's dealing with things such as vehicl

Transport committee  The membership is not producing; however, there are those who are installing other equipment, such as side skirts, fairings for the gap between tractor and trailer, and also boat tails—those types of things. However, there are some stumbling blocks there across the provinces.

Transport committee  The stumbling blocks involving boat tails are twofold. One is the length of the vehicle, in some cases. With a 53-foot trailer, there's only allowance right now for a few extra feet to put on a boat tail, which is essentially a treatment that goes out the back of the vehicle.