Greening the City Fleet

The City of Santa Rosa Fleet Management Section is known locally as an industry leader in clean air technology.  The City has received numerous grant awards to fund many of the over one hundred fleet vehicles/equipment that use alternate fuels including electric, hybrid, Compressed Natural Gas, Propane, and ethanol.  This number of vehicles and equipment represents approximately 10% of the City’s fleet.

In response to a City Council goal to reduce greenhouse gases, Fleet Management adopted an Environmentally Preferable Purchasing policy to eliminate or reduce toxics that create hazards to workers, our community, and the environment.  A goal is to create a model that encourages other purchasers in our community to adopt similar goals.

City of Santa Rosa vehicles are maintained with recycled materials and long-lasting fluids.  Many vehicles operate with retread tires, remanufactured parts, synthetic oils, or long-life coolants.  Some remanufactured products are less expensive and/or last longer than new products.  Though synthetic oils and long life coolants may be more expensive, the longer interval between changes results in less labor and net savings. 

Along with other cities and counties throughout California, the City of Santa Rosa is outfitting medium and heavy duty diesel trucks and buses with diesel particulate filters (DPF), thereby reducing particulate matter in these vehicles by up to 85%.  Installations will be monitored by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and completed for all these vehicles by December, 2011.   

In 2006, the City of Santa Rosa began using a 5% bio-diesel blend in selected diesel trucks.  The bio diesel has performed well regarding fuel mileage and engine operation.  Driver feed back has also been positive.  The City is using 20% blend of biodiesel in select vehicles in order to evalaute performance of this fuel.