Workshop on Road Transport Emission Reduction

Last 22 June, upon invitation by the European Commission, Mr G. Müller, CITA Vice President of Technical Affairs, participated in a multi-country workshop on road transport emission reduction. 

The workshop took place in Prague at the Ministry of the Environment of the Czech Republic, and was chaired by Mr Vladislav Smrž, Deputy Minister of the Environment.

The aim of the workshop was to share information end experiences regarding the tampering of vehicle emission systems, and meaningful measurements to detect tampered components.

Mr Smrž started by explaining the impact of road traffic on air quality, and he showed the importance of clean vehicles. Afterwards, Ms Milena Machalova (Ministry of Transport, Czech Republic) informed about the current activities in their country, such as the new centralised register to evaluate the emission tests or the reduction of the limit for smoke emission for EURO 6 diesel vehicles (K-value of max. 0.3 m-1). Mr Peter Lenďák, Director of S-EKA – Technical Service, stated that Slovakia has also reduced the threshold for the K-value to 0.3 m-1 for the periodic emission test.

Mr Müller introduced the main results of the studies and research conducted by the CITA emission working group to modernise the periodic emission test (SET I and SET II Project). He also presented the recommendations from CORTE and CITA regarding anti-tampering measurements, most of which can be implemented on a short-term perspective. In the subsequent discussion it was shown that for a meaningful evaluation of emission after-treatment systems requires an urgent modernisation of the current periodic emission tests for diesel and petrol vehicles.