Parker Hannifin confirmed a 43% reduction in fuel consumption and 99% uptime for refuse vehicles using its RunWise Advanced Series Hybrid Drive System after more than a year of service for its fleet of pre-production vehicles operating in several communities in South Florida.


The pre-production vehicles, Autocar E3 refuse trucks, are being used by Florida's City of Hialeah, Miami-Dade County, and The City of Miami. The City of Miami has already purchased five more Autocar E3s after operating one truck on city routes during the past year and seeing close to 50% fuel savings compared to other trucks in its fleet. Miami-Dade County has been using six vehicles and reports that the Autocar E3 vehicles equipped with RunWise consume 36 gallons of fuel per day compared with 63 for the other vehicles in their fleet. Other municipalities in Texas, North Carolina, Florida and Indiana have placed orders for the new vehicles.

Parker's RunWise Advanced Series Hybrid Drive can recover as much as 70% of the energy typically lost during braking and reuse it to power the vehicle. It uses a two-speed hydrostatic drive combined with a mechanical direct drive that allows the vehicle to optimize performance at low and high speeds.

"The hybrid is faster, more dependable, experiences less noise in the cab and has not encountered any problems," said Scotty Rodgers, an operator for the City of Miami. "The truck moves very smoothly from stop to stop, allowing me to get through my route more quickly."

Maintenance has been reduced on the brakes, which have yet to require replacement and are anticipated to last up to eight times longer than on the conventional fleet.

While Parker expands its service network across the states, Miami will host a service team to support these customers and fleets answer any questions about the system while recording and validating the performance of the trucks. Key measures include reduced fuel consumption, improved route efficiency and reduced carbon emissions.