9/09/16

Summary: This meeting was our inaugural meeting for the year. On the agenda today was the creation of a team description, a review of ongoing projects, and planning for future meetings.

In attendance:

    Josh Feldman

    Claire Dondival

Ankit Singhai

Yangfeng Ouyang

Pete Varney

Lily Wilcox - Active Transportation Coordinator

Olivia Webb - Sustainability Programs Coordinator

Topics Covered:

Team Description

We collectively crafted our team description for the iCAP portal, which can be found at:  https://icap.sustainability.illinois.edu/project/transportation-swateam.

Project Slides

Renewable Fleet Study:

Claire and Petehelped foster a discussion about the current types of alternative fuels for campus fleet vehicles. Currently, natural gas is the only type of fuel seriously looked at. One concern was that the gas CNG, while possible to implement, would be somewhat costly and have little payback unless driven many miles. Electric vehicles were brought up, but are currently not part of the market. Biodiesel was also mentioned, but its performance in cold weather is a concern.

Staff Mode Shift:

Lily discussed the ways that this project will reduce single occupancy vehicles. One idea looked at was bike sharing, which has been tried by Purdue but does not have much payback economically. Lily also discussed “It’s your MTD too”, which features social bus-riding trips which introduce MTD to campus employees.

Bike Plan:

This was a summary of effort to make campus more bike-friendly. This would include having more, and better, bike parking. UIUC was recently recognized as a bronze-level Bike Friendly University by the League of American Bicyclists.

Future Meetings

We decided that every other Friday at 1pm is a good time to hold meetings. We will be holding meetings in the National Soybean Research Laboratory. Our clerk Josh will send out reminders.

The Transportation SWATeam submitted a recommendation to the iWG stating,

"Campus fleet analysis and planning. The campus fleet includes department-owned vehicles, the car and truck pool vehicles, and the heavy equipment pool (mainly diesel-fueled large construction equipment). It is proposed that a feasibility study be performed on campus that:
1. Reviews the campus sustainability goals in the context of the University fleet;
2. Analyzes existing fleet data (i.e., fleet composition, ownership, usage/mileage profile) and future demand;
3. Evaluates current vehicle technology, fleet size, fuel types and availability;
4. Proposes collection of additional data (if needed);
5. Identifies various plans and anticipated cost/benefit results. Some of the options include: converting regular fuels to compressed natural gas, electricity, or biodiesel, increasing the portion of low-emission hybrid vehicles."

See attached the SWATeam recommendation, Trans007 Campus Fleet Analysis and Planning, complete with comments from all the Transportation SWATeam members.

See the supplanted SWATeam recommendation Trans004 Fleet Study here.

The iCAP Working Group (iWG) met on April 2, 2015, to discuss and start the assessment of SWATeam recommendation, Trans004 Fleet Study. Their official comment on the recommendation was:

"The iWG recommends that F&S undertake this study. We suggest that F&S work with the Transportation SWATeam to attempt to identify interested faculty who could lead the study. We suggest that the study also consider a 10-year horizon for campus efforts, examining what immediate actions can be taken and what actions could be undertaken in the coming years to account for expectations for future vehicle availability."

See attached the iWG assessment of Trans004 Fleet Study recommendation complete with official comments from all the iWG members.

See SWATeam recommendation Trans004 Fleet Study here.

Dear iCAP Working Group Members,

As a reminder, we will be meeting this Thursday at 1:30 (and also next Thursday, 4/9, at 1:30).

This week we will discuss the timeline for completing our work on the iCAP, and then turn our attention to the 7 attached formal recommendations we've received from the Transportation and Purchasing, Waste, and Recycling SWATeams.  Please review these in advance of the meeting, so that we can discuss them most efficiently.  If you will not be able to join us due to a schedule conflict, please email me in advance if you have any particular concerns.

Next week (4/9), we'll be joined by Kent Reifsteck and Mike Larson from F&S, and also Scott Willenbrock from the Energy Generation SWATeam, so that we can discuss what the iCAP should say about charting a pathway for clean energy for our campus.

Thanks,

Ben

Professor Benjamin J. McCall

Associate Director for Campus Sustainability Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus-sustainability@illinois.edu