Nepc annual Report 2014-15

Audited maintenance programs for diesel vehicles

The Queensland Government encourages the heavy vehicle industry to participate in the National Heavy Vehicle Accreditation Scheme (NHVAS) which is administered by the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator. The scheme encourages heavy vehicle operators to take more responsibility for servicing their vehicles and ensuring vehicles are compliant with maintenance accreditation requirements. Compliance with an accredited maintenance management scheme provides a concession to the requirement for an annual inspection in Queensland and the requirement to provide a Certificate of Inspection prior to registering vehicles.

There are 35,933 heavy vehicles currently participating in the NHVAS maintenance scheme and 841 registered operators. This is another moderate increase on last year’s NHVAS accreditations. The majority of vehicles participating in the NHVAS use diesel.

Diesel vehicle retrofit programs

There were no diesel retrofit programs on offer in Queensland during the reporting period.

Other programs

Queensland had no other programs specific to reducing or managing diesel emissions during the reporting period.

Western Australia

Report to the National Environment Protection Council (NEPC) on the implementation of the National Environment Protection (Diesel Vehicle Emissions) Measure for Western Australia by Hon. Albert Jacob MLA, Minister for Environment; Heritage for the reporting year ended 30 June 2015.

PART 1—IMPLEMENTATION OF THE NEPM AND ANY SIGNIFICANT ISSUES

In Western Australia, the National Environment Protection (Diesel Vehicle Emissions) Measure (Diesel NEPM) is implemented by the Department of Environment Regulation (DER) under the National Environment Protection Council (WA) Act 1996 and the Western Australian Environmental Protection (WA) Act 1986.

Vehicle emissions in Western Australia are regulated under the Road Traffic (Vehicles) Act 2012 and Road Traffic (Vehicles) Regulations 2014. The ten-second rule for smoky vehicles aims to target visually polluting diesel and petrol vehicles and is administered by the Department of Transport (DoT).

The Western Australian Government’s Perth Air Quality Management Plan (AQMP) aims to ensure that clean air is achieved and maintained throughout the Perth metropolitan region. The AQMP identifies that the management of emissions from in-service petrol and diesel vehicles is critical to achieving clean air, and contains a range of initiatives that target on-road vehicles. The implementation of vehicle emissions reduction initiatives in the AQMP are largely complementary to the outcomes of the Diesel NEPM.

PART 2—ASSESSMENT OF NEPM EFFECTIVENESS

The 2014 deployment of the CleanRun Remote Sensing Program (the CleanRun Program) demonstrated that individual vehicle emissions are improving in the Perth metropolitan area. This improvement is largely attributed to stringent Australian Design Rule (ADR) emission standards for new vehicles. Data analysis of the 15,000 identified vehicles during the deployment of the CleanRun Program demonstrates that although the average age of the tested passenger and light commercial vehicles in Perth has remained stable at eight years old, the majority of passenger vehicles in the 2014 Perth fleet are between two and eight years old. This places the largest group of vehicles within the more recent ADR range. The ADR range of the Perth vehicle fleet tested by the CleanRun Program in 2007, 2010 and 2014 is displayed in Figure 1. The diesel passenger and light commercial vehicle fleet tested by the CleanRun Program in 2014 are included in Figure 1 in black.

Average diesel emissions for individual passenger and light commercial vehicles have improved across the four tested emissions categories: carbon monoxide (CO by 33 per cent), hydrocarbons (HC by 40 per cent), nitrous oxide (NO by 14.5 per cent) and smoke factor (PM by 21.4 per cent).

Implementation of vehicle emissions reduction initiatives of the AQMP and the CleanRun Program are the foundation of vehicle emissions reduction strategies undertaken by DER. DER will continue to work with DoT, other government agencies and industry associations to investigate and implement motor vehicle related policies and management actions where appropriate to reduce the impact of diesel vehicle emission in Western Australia.

Smoky vehicles program

In 2014/15 the Smoky Vehicle Reporting Program (SVRP) received an average of 22.3 reports per month which is almost half of the 2013/14 average of 42.5 reports per month. The total number of reports received and information packs sent out for the twelve months from July 2014 to June 2015 was 268.

Table 1 summarises the responses from 118 owners of the 268 reported vehicles from July 2014 to June 2015 . The results show that 48 per cent of respondents have had their vehicle repaired since receiving a report of their smoky vehicle. This is a two per cent increase on the previous reporting period. The proportion of respondents reporting that their vehicle does not smoke has dropped from 43 per cent in 2013/14 to 38 per cent in 2014/15. Sixty per cent of respondents report their vehicle fuel as diesel. In 2014/15 six vehicles were reported on more than one occasion. Of the six vehicles, three reported that the vehicle had been repaired, one had disposed of the vehicle and one denied that the vehicle smoked. The final vehicle owner failed to reply. None of the vehicles reported multiple times had been reported by the same person.

Figure 1. Australian Design Rule (ADR) of tested fleet population



Table 1. Responses from owners of reported vehicles

Vehicle repaired	57 (48%)
Vehicle does not smoke	45 (38%)
Can’t afford to repair	1 (<1%)
Disposed of vehicle	3 (2%)
Wrong vehicle	6 (5%)
Other	8 (7%)
Petrol	35 (30%)
Diesel	71 (60%)
LPG	2 (<2%)
Fuel type not reported	13 (11%)