As reveled by the diesel vehicle data supplied by the Division of Motor Vehicles, Tainan County has a total diesel vehicle count of 28,777 cars, and among them, the number of large passenger and freight vehicles totals 9,153 cars, and that of small diesel passenger/freight vehicles totals to approximately 19,626 cars. In light of which, the Tainan County Environmental Protection Bureau has since 1999 commissioned a consulting company commanding the professional know-how to execute the diesel vehicle odometer exhaust fume discharge inspection and screening project on its behalf, with which to monitor and urge the diesel vehicle owners and drivers to be truly aware of the importance of vehicle maintenance, and to excel Tainan County’s air quality.
Since the Environmental Protection Administration has in December 2003 amended and announced the testing and screening methods by appending the inspection rejection provision for vehicles’ horsepower failing to meet the maximum designated horsepower, the circumstances of rejected inspection due to underrated rotation speed in the earlier periods have diminished; however, when the horsepower rejected inspection began implementing in 2004, the number of vehicles being rejected at the inspection due to underrated horsepower has begun to increase steadily, and with the test scheme being implemented for a number of years, the lagged criteria governing rejected inspection on horsepower still finds approximately 19% of the vehicles receiving the inspection at the station being rejected, which indicates that the phenomenon of improper adjustments still exists to date.
Of the roadside intercepting inspection work inducted this year, the visual rendering of the exhaust fume screening work by test-pressing the fuel throttle after a vehicle has been intercepted is still ongoing, with which to inspect and screen potentially polluting vehicle, whereby failed vehicles are given a report ruling, which serves to provide significant deterrence effect on vehicles that have been tempered with improper adjustments from the car to the odometer at the time of inspection, and consequently the project is able to utilize limited inspection and testing frequencies to excel the maximum inspection and screen yield. In addition, a stepped-up crackdown has also been sought on the diesel fuel the vehicles use, in a bid to curtail the use of illegal diesel with excessively high contents of sulfur, and to prevent the sulfuric compounds from polluting the air after combustion.
