Off-road and Other Vehicles
Other type of vehicles can benefit from new technology that reduces emissions like trains, boats and planes, forklifts, ground service equipment, and other vehicles used in construction or freight yards.
Some of these sectors are outside of state control, but opportunities still exist. Support vehicles at airports and rail and port shipping yards can transition to electric vehicles or vehicles that use lower emission fuels. These efforts must account for the large fleet sizes and sometimes limited available space for charging infrastructure at airports, marine ports, and railyards.
Off-road and other vehicles: emissions reduction vision
State government doesn’t have targets yet. Technology is moving quickly and resources need to be provided for coordination among our public and private partners.
How we’re doing
We’ve seen an uptick in freight yard equipment electrification. The market is responding to the simpler electric off-road and construction equipment with associated cost savings and improved air quality for their workers.
The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality is helping by providing incentives to scrap older, more polluting non-road diesel engines and equipment through their allocation of federal Diesel Emissions Reduction Act funding. This program provides grants to remove old equipment from service and deploy new, cleaner burning and zero emissions replacement technologies.
Oregon doesn’t have metrics for planes, boats, and trains, but these vehicles produce over 20% of Oregon’s greenhouse gas emissions. State agencies would need to work with our partners across the state to advance ways to reduce emissions from these vehicles.
How Oregon can improve
The Oregon Department of Transportation can continue to implement recommendations from their 2022 Operational GHG Best Practices & Recommendations report to reduce agency and contractor greenhouse gas emissions. These include agency fleet electrification, shifting to renewable fuels and increasing use of low carbon transportation materials in project construction.
The Clean Ports program, which helped many rail, ship and aviation fleets reduce emission from their operations, was ended by the federal government in 2025. Funding such programs could aid both planning and implementation of freight yard electrification, as well as signal to the market the demand to increase availability of these vehicles and equipment.
The Port of Portland can continue shifting to electrification and exploring sustainable aviation fuel and other vehicle technology that uses lower emission fuels. Other ports, railyards, and construction equipment can follow suit.