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My time is a bit limited but have you covered tire brands yet? There are more than a few companies who have discovered retreads are costing them fuel efficiency. I bet it's already been mentioned but full alignments of both truck and trailer are paramount, a hundreth of a degree of trailer runout puts it into the wind about 2 inches.
Engine modifications: I used to hotshot for the oil and gas industry. I worked for a company that supplied parts for gensets at the various drilling sites. On a cummins they respond very well to exhaust side porting, ultimately I purchased a steed speed manifold but porting the stock manifold as well as the head helped my mileage about 4% and lowered egts a bit too.
Other modifications on a modern common rail truck you might think involve parasitic drag, pump and fan, but the pump has a built in relief that is pretty dang good at allowing it to free spin and the fan on most modern cummins engines can be stopped with a finger, usually they use a hydraulic actuator that turns the fan on and off as needed. An electric fan with enough CFM capacity for the horsepower rating of the truck would both cost thousands of dollars but also potentially be detrimental to hill climbing with a load.
I see water injection is being tested, it works and is commonly used all over the diesel industry, sometimes by OEMs. You actually can increase injection timing a few degrees to pick up some efficiency, however if you run out of water it is going to make the injector tips very very hot.
Do the trucks used give the driver feedback about fuel consumption live on their displays? Some new(er) trucks are using adaptive cruise control with a variety of efficiency functions now too, including pick up trucks.
Oil. I wanted to bring it up because I own a few diesels. Not too long ago CK became the latest oil standard, it's been CJ-4 for years but now with the latest efficiency and wear improvements CK is the new standard. So far I have tried Delo and Rotella CK formulations. Personal observations, the engine is just a bit quieter, it takes longer to warm up by a minute or two and the EGTs are a bit lower. I don't have a solid metric yet for fuel efficiency because this is only my second oil change so far. I suspect a 1-2% improvement over the bulk Delo I was using. In this catergory there is alot to be learned, I suggest heading over to bobistheoilguy.com to learn more. Oil temperature can also be a big player, I like to see my oil temp around 10-15 degrees higher than my water temp. I like coolant to be around 200 on a cummins, it's about what they design most of their engines to run at efficiently.
Does your company own the reefers they are hauling too? If so there is something to be said about making sure the apus in the vans are running well, have the proper refrigerant level and the coils are clean. I bet you've noticed it by now that the fuel use of those reefers can be all over the map. It would be something to take a look at.
I will check back tonight or Monday when I get the chance to sit down and read the whole thread, GOOD LUCK SIR!
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