No.

The answer for those who want to know the details:

All things equal, that is if you’re just buying a vehicle or other piece of equipment to save fuel, the math will never pencil out positively.

That is different from utilizing a resource you already own (say an existing pickup), or considering if a 300hp diesel is adequate instead of a 450hp diesel when specing the next truck. Those are different situations, and good things to consider.

But let’s consider the math on making a capital investment to see if it would save us money:

First, let’s remember our heavy apparatus are built with engines, transmissions, brakes, etc designed for trucks that put 100,000+ miles on them in a year in commercial service. Not a fire engine that’s a busy company to see 10,000 miles a year. It means a lot of service costs are done not by mileage, hours, or objective tests, but simply out of time — it would take years or decades otherwise to reach the hours needed to change components. That means our fixed costs are pretty much the same whether an engine runs 1,000 miles, 5,000 miles, or 10,000 miles in a year.

Let’s assume a few things:
1,000 EMS runs a year to be done by an alternate vehicle;
5mpg mileage on your engine;
2 mile round trip on average for a medical call.

That’s 2,000 miles per year, or 400 gallons in diesel fuel used. At $5 diesel, that’s a savings of $2,000/year per 1,000 runs.

What is the capital cost to purchase an alternate vehicle? I think $30,000 to buy a gasoline powered 4×4 pickup truck with a cap, and install radios and lights, as well as duplicate equipment like Defibs currently on the engines would be a very, very tight budget.

What’s the service life of such a vehicle? Even we assume a 10 year life for front-line service by a light duty vehicle like that, you’ve already lost the math on the day you buy the vehicle, since it’s amortized (over service life) cost is $3,000 to save $2,000. Even with a 15 year life, the extra cost in fuel and maintenance for the vehicle will mean the finances don’t pencil out.

As you get busier, you’ll still see no savings. Going to take an urban system running 3,000 EMS runs and get 10 years out of a cheap vehicle? No. Nor in a busy, urban system would you want to split Engine crews up and put them behind the gun when a fire call comes in and couple people are out gallavanting in another vehicle — and hiring more staff will ALWAYS be more expensive then fuel.

It hurts the budget because of the sudden increase in one budget line. But’s the simple fact is fuel is still relatively cheap. It’s cheaper then people, and it’s cheaper then buying more vehicles.

No.

The answer for those who want to know the details:

All things equal, that is if you’re just buying a vehicle or other piece of equipment to save fuel, the math will never pencil out positively.

That is different from utilizing a resource you already own (say an existing pickup), or considering if a 300hp diesel is adequate instead of a 450hp diesel when specing the next truck. Those are different situations, and good things to consider.

But let’s consider the math on making a capital investment to see if it would save us money:

First, let’s remember our heavy apparatus are built with engines, transmissions, brakes, etc designed for trucks that put 100,000+ miles on them in a year in commercial service. Not a fire engine that’s a busy company to see 10,000 miles a year. It means a lot of service costs are done not by mileage, hours, or objective tests, but simply out of time — it would take years or decades otherwise to reach the hours needed to change components. That means our fixed costs are pretty much the same whether an engine runs 1,000 miles, 5,000 miles, or 10,000 miles in a year.

Let’s assume a few things:
1,000 EMS runs a year to be done by an alternate vehicle;
5mpg mileage on your engine;
2 mile round trip on average for a medical call.

That’s 2,000 miles per year, or 400 gallons in diesel fuel used. At $5 diesel, that’s a savings of $2,000/year per 1,000 runs.

What is the capital cost to purchase an alternate vehicle? I think $30,000 to buy a gasoline powered 4×4 pickup truck with a cap, and install radios and lights, as well as duplicate equipment like Defibs currently on the engines would be a very, very tight budget.

What’s the service life of such a vehicle? Even we assume a 10 year life for front-line service by a light duty vehicle like that, you’ve already lost the math on the day you buy the vehicle, since it’s amortized (over service life) cost is $3,000 to save $2,000. Even with a 15 year life, the extra cost in fuel and maintenance for the vehicle will mean the finances don’t pencil out.

As you get busier, you’ll still see no savings. Going to take an urban system running 3,000 EMS runs and get 10 years out of a cheap vehicle? No. Nor in a busy, urban system would you want to split Engine crews up and put them behind the gun when a fire call comes in and couple people are out gallavanting in another vehicle — and hiring more staff will ALWAYS be more expensive then fuel.

It hurts the budget because of the sudden increase in one budget line. But’s the simple fact is fuel is still relatively cheap. It’s cheaper then people, and it’s cheaper then buying more vehicles.