Mobile pollution source is one of the main reasons that cause the deterioration of air quality in urban areas. The dark exhausts from diesel-fueled vehicles are, among others, most resented. For this, it is the purpose of this program to improve the air quality of Taipei city and give back to citizens a clean and refreshed atmosphere by implementing audits on diesel-fueled vehicles.
This program was in place from 28 Feb to 27 Dec 2020; during this period 51,690 vehicles were subject to visual inspections and 2,695 of them were identified for concern of air pollution and issued notifications. 8,062 vehicles were put to dynamo testing; 6,051 were pulled over for roadside inspections, and 260 of them were found failing the opacity test during roadside inspections. 63 samples were collected for fuel testing and none of them was identified for failure of testing. All inspection operations achieve the contract requirements.
For fleet management, the Environmental Protection Bureau tries to help logistics businesses with the maintenance of their vehicles through a series of administrative incentives, while issuing self-management labels to these businesses every year; the goal is to help 80% of these businesses obtain the label in a year, as an effort to improve the air quality of the city. On the other hand, vehicles that access the incineration plant are mostly trucks of various sizes and these trucks are Stage 3 through 5 trucks. Most of the Bureau’s vehicles have been installed with exhaust filters and the Bureau asked all their vehicles, large or small, to have the self-management label of excellent grade by July 2020 for the promotion of air quality maintenance areas in 2021. Up to the end of November 2020, 456 out of the Bureau’s 586 vehicles have been issued the excellent grade label, accounting for 77.8%. 49 audits were performed this year on bus depots, 390 buses were inspected and the failure percentage was 0.8%. By the end of July 2020, the depot auditing time was increased from half a day to a full day. It was expected to see increased failures of opacity testing as the old system was cancelled, but fortunately that did not happen; the percentage of citation, however, increased from 0.6% to 0.9%.
For subsidies, the Environmental Protection Administration amended the subsidy rules in 2020 and this program continues under the amended subsidy rules for the promotion of retiring Stage 1 through 3 vehicles. The retiring target this year (2020) is 252 vehicles and 768 Stage 1, 2 and 3 vehicles were retired up to November 2020 for 304.8% of retirement performance. The applications for retirement subsidy were submitted for 554 vehicles, but one repeated application was found and 13 rejected. 541 of these applications have been reviewed so far. 78.7% of these applications were submitted for replacement of old with new; by stage, 58.7% of the applications were for Stage 3 vehicles.
EPA also amended the rules for subsidy for fuel control system tuning and installation of air pollution control equipment in 2020. 3 garages in Taipei City have been certified for the tuning of fuel control system in large diesel-fueled vehicles (Yue Ye Motors, Toyo Diesel Injectors and Hung-Da Injectors). However, previous criteria for application were that vehicles have to pass the required tests and demonstrate the performance in terms of air quality improvement, which made vehicle owners reluctant to submit the application. Now that the rules have been amended, 19 applications have been submitted in Taipei City alone; 54.8% of these applications were submitted by Wan Kuo Tech and 48.4% of these applications were submitted for Stage 3 vehicles. For the installation of exhaust filters, 5 vehicles were installed with the filters in 2020 in Taipei city and applications submitted for these vehicles. Most of the applications, or 4 to be precise, were submitted for government-operated vehicles and all of them were large trucks. One application was submitted by a private business and the vehicle was also a large truck. The truck operator was approached and asked why they installed the filter and it turned out it was the request by TSMC. This indicates it takes both the government and private businesses to work together for the installation of exhaust filters.
The Environmental Protection Bureau rearranged the air quality maintenance areas, including Taipei Bus Station, Taipei City Hall Bus Station, Nangang Bus Station, and large parking facilities at National Palace Museum, National Revolutionary Martyrs' Shrine, Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, Yangmingshan Park, Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall, and Taipei 101 Tower. The subjects of control include diesel-fueled large passenger vehicles, large and small cargo vehicles of all stages and motorcycles that failed to report to annual inspections. For this, excellent grade label or higher is required for diesel-fueled large passenger vehicles, large and small cargo vehicles, and motorcycles, regardless of the stage, shall report to the annual inspection of the current year. The air quality maintenance areas are expected to be effective on 1 Jan 2021.
Based on the pollution improvement from inspecting nonconforming vehicles and pre-inspection vehicle tuning, as well as the annual travel mileage suggested by EPA, it is estimated for this program to reduce 43.62 tons/year of particulate matters (PM10) in 2020.
