It is hoped that special area control, continuing the clean zone policy promoted in the past, can be improved to create air quality maintenance zones, restricting or banning highly polluting diesel vehicles and old motorcycles. The counties and cities have made projects following the related policy direction, hoping to replace manual inspection with license plate recognition (LPR) system. Moreover, a database platform is planned to be established for registered vehicle control and comparison to carry out vehicle inspection and control work in the air quality maintenance zones. After the Air Pollution Control Act was passed, competent authorities at all levels in accordance with Article 40 of this Act may designate air quality maintenance zones, in which control measures for certain mobile pollution sources are implemented. In the previous year, Chimei Museum and Tainan Metropolitan Park became the first air quality maintenance zones in Tainan City, which were announced to be officially effective from July 1, 2022. This year it was originally promoted that the National Cheng Kung University Hospital would be designated as an air quality maintenance zone, but this project is temporarily put on hold due to the university’s consideration regarding designation. Subsequently, the Port of Anping was designated as an air quality maintenance zone. The related negotiation meeting and discussion meeting were held, and pre-announcement has been released, control measures will be promoted after the announcement is made next year.
Through this project, and using the installed and established license plate recognition system, back-end information was collected. Focusing on the diesel vehicles not yet controlled as well as the motorcycles not yet undergoing regular inspection, notifications of inspection were sent to these vehicle and motorcycle owners. Through collating of the LPR information and comparative analysis of the vehicle registration data, vehicle running information in different districts and air pollution high potential maps could serve as a reference for future formulation of the mobile pollution source control strategies as well as the control measures for designation of air quality maintenance zones.
1. Project implementation schedule
This project was implemented from January 27, 2022 to January 28, 2023. The final report of implementation statistical results is as of January 27, 2023.
2. Major implementation results
(1) In the statistical data as of January 27, 2023, the total number of LPR system-recognized vehicles was 1,040,420 vehicles (306,303 diesel vehicles and 734,117 motorcycles). After excluding those with invalid license plates and also filtering out and comparing those with unique-number license plates, the total number of diesel vehicles was 46,973 vehicle-times and that of motorcycles was 338,355 motorcycle-times (excluding the number of cars).
(2) After screening, notification of inspection were sent by ordinary letter and registered letter requiring advice of receipt to the owners of the diesel vehicles not yet controlled as well as the owners of the motorcycles not undergoing regular inspection before required date. For the notifications of inspection being sent, there were 9,000 diesel vehicle cases and 46,039 motorcycle cases in total (39,339 cases with second notification sent by ordinary letter, and 6,700 cases with notifications sent by registered letter requiring advice of receipt, with the total postage reaching the budgeted amount of $638,000).
(3) This project had completed the pre-announcement regarding designating the Port of Anping as an air quality maintenance zone. In accordance with the regulations of the Environmental Protection Administration’s “Drafting and Review Operations of Control Measures for Mobile Pollution Sources in Air Quality Maintenance Zones”, the Environmental Protection Administration invited the committee members to hold an online review meeting on January 4, 2023, and the control measures would be revised in accordance with the opinions of the committee members.
(4) 4 meetings relating to promotion and discussion of air quality maintenance zone HAVE held.
(5) There was completion of promotion work including 3 press releases, 2 promotional materials about mobile pollution sources, and 1 promotional radio broadcast.
(6) There were 185 construction project engineering vehicles with air pollution reduced (LPR project: 170 vehicles; construction project: 15 vehicles). There were 170 engineering vehicles being under control, 170 vehicles having black smoke detected, and 15 vehicles assisting the construction project in pumping out fuel.
(7) 748 cases have completed replacement of diesel vehicles and having achieved the goal of pollution improvement. At the end of November 1,329 cases had completed case review and fund data processing for this project (878 cases of scrapping, including those of owner transfer and owner replacement, 440 cases of adjustment and repair, and 11 cases of additional installation of smoke filter).
(8) According to the Environmental Protection Administration’s assessment, the number of diesel vehicles within phase-3 in 2022 should reach 6% (1405 vehicles) of the total number of diesel vehicles within phase-3 in 2021 (23,416 vehicles). At the end of November 2022 the number of diesel vehicles within phase-3 had reached 1,533 vehicles for this project, with an achievement rate of 109.1%, accounting for 6.5% of the total number of diesel vehicles within phase-3 in 2021.
3. Suggestions
(1) Improvement actions during the period of poor air quality
During the period when poor air quality occurs each year (from October to March of the next year) it is suggested that roadside stopping of diesel vehicles for inspection on the appropriate road sections in the potentially highly-polluting districts (Southern District, Rende District, Annan District, Yongkang District) should be carried out, based on the LPR results in 2022, diesel vehicle project can be provided to perform roadside stopping of diesel vehicles for inspection, and emergency response and improvement actions can be taken during the period of poor air quality, providing a reference for drafting inspection and control measures for highly polluting vehicles.
(2) Improvement action of expanding vehicle survey
It is suggested that the LPR results collected on Interchanges (Rende, Yongkang, Anding, Madou, Xinshi, Xinying as well as 86 and 84 Expressways) in the jurisdiction can be compared with the data of different industrial districts so as to compare whether the diesel vehicles exiting from the Interchanges and Expressways have entered the industrial districts in the jurisdiction, and investigate the groups and industry types of the vehicles mainly entering and leaving these districts. There should be screening of the high-polluting diesel vehicles not yet controlled so as to send notifications of vehicle inspection to their owners, providing a reference for the diesel vehicle planning stations to plan inspection schedules.
(3) Vehicle survey and control plan in air quality maintenance zones
In response to the Environmental Protection Administration’s assessment, in which the air quality maintenance zones around schools and hospitals were prioritized, it is suggested that focusing on the designated districts to be installed with LPR system, surveys can be made in January-June 2023 on the percentages of the diesel coaches (trucks), light trucks and fuel motorcycles manufactured over 5 years entering the planned control zones, as well as the percentages of industry type, vehicle type and vehicle registration of the various diesel vehicles, in order to assess the impacts and effects after promotion of the control measures. The details can serve as a basis for subsequent holding of discussion and negotiation meeting with the interested parties affected by the impacts. Through review, negotiation, and discussion of perfect control measures, the impact and effects caused by control measures can be minimized.
