‘Yellow-label’ cars face ban from city in green drive
Zhuang Pinghui – SCMP – Updated on Oct 03, 2008
Beijing will phase out polluting vehicles known as “yellow-label” cars over the next year in a bid to improve the capital’s notoriously poor air quality.
Beijing issues yellow labels to cars whose emission levels fail to meet Euro I standards and green labels to those that do. The city has around 357,000 yellow-label vehicles; most are heavy trucks. Most domestic vehicles manufactured before 1996 or imported ones manufactured before 1998 are in the yellow category.
Xinhua reported that municipal authorities ordered all yellow-label government vehicles off the road from Monday and those involved in ancillary services, such as refuse transport, replaced within a year.
From January 1, all yellow-label vehicles, except those involved in food supplies and refuse transport, will be banned within the Fifth Ring Road. The ban will extend to the Sixth Ring Road, close to the boundary with Hebei province, on October 1 next year.
Xinhua said yellow-label vehicles accounted for only 10 per cent of the total in Beijing but were responsible for more than half of total vehicle emissions.
Traffic control measures, including daylight bans on yellow-label cars, were implemented for the Olympics and the Paralympics to ensure improved air quality.
The report cited a Tsinghua University survey as saying during the Olympic period pollutants from vehicles had declined by 30 to 40 per cent.
It quoted Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau official Feng Yuqiao as saying that nighttime air pollution levels were 15 to 20 per cent higher than in the day mainly because of the yellow-label vehicles coming into the city in the evening.
The ban on the polluting vehicles is part of a series of post-Olympics car restrictions that take effect this month in the hope of sustaining smooth traffic and good air quality after the Games.
Under the new traffic restrictions from October 11, 30 per cent of government vehicles will be garaged and the remainder of government vehicles and private cars will take turns on the roads on weekdays depending on their number plates.
The ban will apply from 6am to 9pm for private cars and around the clock for government and corporate vehicles. It is expected to cut Beijing’s average traffic flow by 6.5 per cent and speed up traffic within the Fifth Ring Road by 8 per cent.