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Railroads are helping United Parcel Service reduce its fuel usage and emit fewer greenhouse gases. Now, the shipper wants to up the ante on its air-quality goals.

On Feb. 9, UPS announced it joined the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's "SmartWay Transport" program under which participants plan to reduce CO2 and NOx emissions by 72 million tons and 200,000 tons, respectively, by 2012.

SmartWay provides measurement tools designed to enable participants to set emission goals and determine fuel savings based on implementing certain technologies.

Using the tools, UPS determined it reduces fuel consumption up to a factor of three by using railroads to move some ground packages, and saves fuel by using double instead of single trailers and computer technology to balance package loads across all delivery vehicles serving a city.

When it reaches its 100th anniversary in 2007, UPS expects to increase fuel efficiency 3 percent. In 2002, the shipper used 0.1038 of a gallon of fuel for each package delivery. By 2007, UPS expects to reduce that figure to 0.1008 gallons per package.