Development of road transport emission standards

Emissions from road vehicles are playing an important role in air quality which has a significant impact on human health. Pollutant emissions have to be precisely determined to ensure that air quality plans are designed and realized properly. Vehicle emissions standards, and associated improvements in fuel quality, have been shown internationally to be the most cost-effective measures to reduce urban air pollution from the road transport sector. So far, nonvolatile particle mass (PM) has been used as a measure to measure and limit vehicle emission. Further significant reductions in emission limits couldn’t be achieved, therefore new measurement methods had to be introduced. The European Commission introduced a limit for nonvolatile particle number (PN) emission. 23 nm for new light-duty (LD) vehicles in 2011 and similar legislation for new heavy-duty (HD) vehicles in 2012. Measuring particle number is not possible with the equipment used to measure particle mass, therefore new investments are needed for the EURO VI measurements. The authors of this article have analysed the development tendencies