Weekly Data Story
New York City has a program where the city’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) enforces the idling law. Fines range from $350 to $2,000. Under New York State law, heavy duty diesel trucks and buses may not idle for more than 5 minutes in a row unless the temperature is less than 25 degrees F and the vehicle is stopped for 2 hours.
This truck idling problem and solution is a bit intriguing. The city wants to minimize idling vehicles due to the associated health risks that come from engine pollution which seems reasonable. One of the counterarguments by truck drivers is that diesel engines need to idle for some time to warm up the engine; which improves performance and minimizes degradation. This latter point is one that can be heavily disputed on either side of the argument.
Then there is the policy that New York City has instituted allowing New Yorkers the ability to report idling trucks which in turn allows them to earn a cut from the ticket. Let’s not forget that this policy has also led to some close calls when a driver approaches a citizen who is recording the idling infraction. This concept of citizen enforcement seems highly interesting to say the least just because it has been reported that a few interactions almost resulted in physical altercations. Furthermore, another interesting point is that a few New Yorkers, always so resourceful, have managed to make some nice sums of money reporting the drivers.
We decided to download the truck idling dataset that the city provides and map where all the infractions occur in the city. As you can see, Manhattan has the highest concentration of vehicles idling throughout the five boroughs.
Authors: Ryan Kmetz & Jose Pillich
