Mobile pollution sources are one of the main causes that lead to deterioration of air quality in urban areas. Among all, the dark smoke emitted by diesel-fueled vehicles is complained about by most people. This project is intended to improve the air quality of Taipei City and give a clean and refreshing environment to the citizens of Taipei by carrying out audits and control of diesel-fueled vehicles.
For audits, the project team performed visual check of emission on 70,026 vehicles from the beginning of the project up to Dec 31, 2019. During this period, 2,526 vehicles were suspected of pollution and given such a notification; 8,207 vehicles were subject to tests on dynamometer; 6,706 vehicles were pulled over for quick roadside checks and 257 of them failed the opacity test in the roadside check; 7,608 fuel samples were collected, 81 sent to laboratory for testing and none failed the test. All inspection operations achieve the contract requirements.
For subsidies, the Environmental Protection Administration amended the Rules for Subsidies for Retiring and Replacing Outdated Large Diesel-Fueled Vehicles (the Rules hereafter) from simple subsidizing the retirement of phase 1 and 2 old large diesel-fueled vehicles to the simple retirement, retirement and replacement, or replacement of pre-owned vehicles for phase 1-3 diesel-fueled vehicles. The amount of subsidy was increased from NT$ 350,000 to NT$ 650,000 per vehicle. In 2019, the project team continued the policy efforts for the retirement of phase 1 and 2 outdated vehicles. This year, the goal was to retire 153 old vehicles. Up to December 2019, 69 applications were filed for simple retirement of old vehicles. With the amendment of the Rules, 37 applications were filed for retirement and replacement of phase 1 and 2 vehicles. The applications indicated that most of the vehicles to be retired are trucks. Thanks to the retirement subsidies and the promotion of this project and others, approximately 30% of phase 1 and 2 vehicles were retired compared to large vehicle registrations provided by EPA in 2017. With the amendment of the Rules, 17 applications were filed for simple retirement of phase 3 vehicles, 104 for retirement and replacement with new vehicles, 22 for retirement and replacement with pre-owned vehicles and 11 for new vehicle transfer. Most of the 104 retirement and replacement vehicles were tour buses.
EPA started to promote the smoke filter certification and subsidies for installation of smoke filter on phase 3 large diesel-fueled vehicles in 2017. As far as the current status of promotion goes, however, EPA permits the normal use of vehicles provided that the vehicles meet the emission criteria at the time they were produced and does not require all phase 3 large vehicles to install smoke filter. Also, EPA amended the Rules for Subsidies for Installation of Smoke Filter on Large Diesel-fueled Vehicles, which state that full reimbursement will be provided for tuning of fuel control system at NT$ 50,000 or less and; subsidy of 49% for the amount exceeding NT$ 50,000 with the cap at NT 100,000; and subsidy of up to NT$ 150,000 for installation of other pollution control equipment (referred to as the filter hereafter) with the extension of subsidy deadline from 2019 to 2022. Currently there are only a handful of car shops that have been certified for tuning subsidies (Yu-Yi and Dongyang in Taipei City). However, to apply for subsidy, the vehicle has to pass vehicle inspection and exhibit pollution improvement. As a result, no application has been filed so far.
For the reasons mentioned above, the government agencies of Taipei City decided to take the lead by developing budget plans to install smoke filters. The recent statistics on the installation of smoke filters on city-owned vehicles show that 150 city-owned sanitary vehicles installed smoke filters in 2018 with the improvement of emission by 99% on average. In 2019, the Environmental Protection Bureau added more budgets to install the filters on 37 vehicles. Up to the end of December 2019, 187 sanitary vehicles and 162 other city-owned diesel-fueled vehicles have been installed with smoke filters, totaling 349 city-owned phase 3 large vehicles have been installed with smoke filters (first place in the country). In addition, the data of installation of smoke filters on other city-owned large vehicles within the jurisdiction indicate that 160 city-owned phase 3 large diesel-fueled vehicles were scheduled to be installed with smoke filters from 2018 to 2020. In 2019, 148 vehicles were installed with smoke filters with applications filed. The number of applications filed suggests that all the vehicles in the applications are owned and operated by government agencies, most of which come from the Fire Department, and most of the vehicles are large trucks.
The self-management mark amended by EPA in 2018 consists of three classes, namely Class 1 through 3 and the issuance of qualification mark is required. Considering that Taipei City should be cleaner and more environment-friendly, therefore, the qualification mark is not issued. In Taipei City, 5,409 vehicles have been given the mark. In December 2019, EPA unified the national criteria for self-management by establishing excellence and qualification marks for vehicles in use. Also, as a matching effort for the subsidy rules, the mark is given to newly purchased phases 5 and 6 vehicles with longer discount period. This project is cooperating with EPA policies for the adjustment of Taipei City’s principles of issuing the marks.
Thanks to the pollution improvement of disqualified vehicles via inspections and pre-inspection vehicle tuning, as well as according to the mileage of travel per year suggested by EPA, it is estimated that this project helped reduce particulate pollutants (PM10) by 58.95 tons/year in 2019.
