Vehicles | Alternative Fuels | Flex in the City | Six in the City | Mobility Response Team (MRT) | Clean Contracting Program

Vehicles - The City of Houston has made significant strides in lowering vehicle emissions and promoting environmental stewardship in its operating practices by reducing the size of the city fleet from 1999 to 2004 by 9%, and increasing the number of lower emitting vehicles in the fleet. As of September 1, 2006 the City owns 297 hybrid vehicles in our fleet. Also, the City now considers the environmental impact of each vehicle in all purchases, just as we consider other factors such as price, size, and lifespan. The City has also retrofit 32 gradalls, 28 pumps, and 22 mini-excavators in the Public Works fleet.

In addition, the City has worked aggressively with Green Space Management and Fleet Maintenance this spring in submitting Texas Emissions Reduction Program nominations for heavy equipment rebates. Using vehicles already budgeted for replacement; this team identified qualifying vehicles to be retired from our fleet. Houston Parks and Recreation Department was the only government agency to receive approximately $150,000 in funding approvals, with more applications pending. With TERP funding, the Parks Department will purchase 4 new trucks and 25 new on-road and 12 non-road vehicles. In addition, all city construction contracts now offer a bonus to contractors who use clean equipment (Tier II or better) on city projects.

Alternative Fuels - The City of Houston has used ultra low sulfur diesel and TxLED - two low emission diesel fuels - since 2004, long before the law required this, even though the cost is greater than fuels with higher levels of emissions. The City is also testing alternative fuels such as bio-diesel on some of the highest emitting vehicles.

Furthermore, new diesel-engine oil has been developed by Shell Oil Company and will be tested on new and old City diesel engines in SWD. The ultimate goal is to use this new diesel oil for both new and older diesel engines, which is more environmentally friendly than the current oil that is used.

Flex in the City - Mayor White has also proposed a flexible workplace initiative, Flex in the City. The program is having a measurable impact on Houston 's freeways, with time and cost savings for motorists. During September 18 - 29, Mayor White asked Houston 's top business leaders, if it made sense for their business, to try additional flexible work options that eliminated at least one additional peak-time commuter.

The project successfully showed that by working together, motorist's time and money could be saved without loss of productivity to businesses. Even more remarkable is the fact that it would cost the taxpayer millions of dollars to build enough road-lane capacity to achieve the same kind of improvement in mobility that was seen through this program.

More than 140 organizations registered for the two-week Flex in the City program as participants and/or supporters; anticipating more than 20,000 employees eliminating an additional peak-time commute through teleworking/telecommuting; compressed workweeks (same number of work hours in fewer days); or shifting their commute to before or after peak-time commute hours.

Employers were encouraged to measure the effect of the flexible work option(s) on productivity while the City measured effects on Houston 's freeways using Houston TranStar.

Six in the City - The new downtown circulator program makes getting around downtown much easier. This program eliminates the guessing on cab rates, any cab ride downtown is just $6. This program, among other things, offers a daytime transportation alternative for commuters using mass-transit, thus making it easier to commute into downtown.

In addition, the City has worked closely with area taxicabs to encourage companies to purchase hybrid vehicles. Yellow Cab and United Cab, were recently featured by the Mayor as leading in this initiative.

Mobility Response Team - The City has created a new Mobility Response Team (MRT), designed to respond to and lessen the impact of significant traffic congestion resulting from malfunctioning traffic signals, accidents, and other mobility issues throughout the city. Also, it has the benefit of freeing police officers up from responding to minor calls.

The team is composed of 21 mobility service officers whose primary responsibilities are traffic control and direction, enforcement of city parking regulations and distribution of "blue forms" at minor accident scenes.

Team members will be dispatched to "hot spots" throughout the city via Public Works and Engineering dispatch at Houston Trans-Star. MRT members will also respond with Public Works Traffic Management crews to traffic signal outages and other non-freeway locations experiencing significant traffic congestion.

MRT members comply with all traffic laws while enroute to calls for service. They are not authorized to issue traffic citations, tow vehicles, or conduct accident investigations.

For more information regarding this program please see http://www.houstontx.gov/environment/epr/signaltiming.pdf

Clean Contracting - Because the City of Houston is concerned about NOx emissions, it has created a provision based on a TXDOT program that offers financial incentives to City contractors that use new, rebuilt, or repowered diesel vehicles on City projects. These vehicles must reach EPA Tier 1, 2, or 3 to receive the incentive pay. If contractors do not wish to participate in the voluntary program, they may opt-out by sending the City of Houston a written notice.

The City is currently reviewing the Clean Contracting program, and identifying ways in which it could be improved and expanded.