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This story appears in the Sept. 7 print edition of Transport Topics.

An organization of truckers, shippers and ocean carriers said it is partnering with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to develop a voluntary SmartWay certification process for port drayage operators.

“What this would do is create a system whereby shippers or other folks who would be hiring service providers in the ports can objectively measure and partner with the companies that have been certified as using clean equipment,” said James Jack, executive director of the Coalition for Responsible Transportation, Sacramento, Calif., the group partnering with EPA.

The program aims to create a national framework for measuring the emission levels of port trucking activities, set benchmarks for air-quality improvement at the nation’s ports and certify emission reductions achieved through the deployment of clean port drayage trucks.

The planned rating system will be based on overall emission profiles rather than the aerodynamic and fuel economy requirements SmartWay currently uses for longhaul carriers.

“We’re looking to include additional criteria, because the port trucks tend to primarily travel shorter distances at slower speeds,” Jack said.

CRT’s members include such large retailers as Target, Wal-Mart, ������ý Depot and Lowe’s; ocean carriers such as “K” Line and Hanjin Shipping; and drayage operators including Southern Counties Express and Total Transportation Services Inc.

The group hopes the SmartWay plan for U.S. ports that is based on emissions and air-quality data drawn from the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, Calif., will be implemented by early next year, Jack said.

“Los Angeles and Long Beach have created a very aggressive program for emissions reduction,” Jack told Transport Topics. “We’re trying to use a lot of the steps they have taken there — they have a wealth of data that’s been collected based on air quality and the average age of the trucks — and using it to develop a model that can hopefully be used all over the nation.”

EPA, which has not officially announced the partnership, did not respond to several calls for comment on the plan.

However, Margo Oge, director of EPA’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality, was quoted in a CRT statement last month saying that the effort demonstrates a “commitment to a cleaner environment and more secure energy supply” by the group.

While the new drayage SmartWay plan is still lacking in details, Rick Gabrielson, president of CRT and Director of Import Transportation for Target, said the idea for national standards for SmartWay certification of drayage truckers first grew out of the group’s discussions about how to get clean trucks operating at the Southern California ports.

“As we looked at it, we realized there’s an opportunity to expand this beyond the regional level to a more national level and try to work in concert with EPA to develop a program that makes it easier for companies to understand and embrace as they, too, want to be good stewards,” Gabrielson told Transport Topics.

“What you find is that large retailers like Target, Lowe’s, JCPenney and others have already made a corporate commitment to implement green practices in all areas of their supply chain,” Jack said. “So it’s a way to encourage other industry participants to do it, and it’s also a way to recognize the folks that are doing the right thing.”

Launched in 2004, the voluntary SmartWay Transport Partnership currently has more than 1,200 partners fleets and shippers nationwide that cut greenhouse gas emissions by reducing the aerodynamic drag and rolling resistance of heavy-duty tractors and trailers traveling on U.S. highways.