Alternatives to I/M programs

Pollution from vehicle emissions in Canada is minuscule compared to that in the United States. However, if governments are serious about reducing ozone-causing emissions, there are more cost-effective ways than I/M programs.

1.Co-ordinate Canadian and American standards

The single most effective method to assure that the Canadian vehicle fleet will significantly reduce the air pollution that it creates is to ensure that Canadians can take full advantage of the emissions-control systems already installed in North American vehicles. This would be done by closer co-ordination of Canadian standards with American standards for emissions, fuel composition, emission-control warranties, and maintenance schedules. Canadian consumers are already paying over $200039 for the emission-control equipment on every new car they buy but this technology is not always being fully utilized in Canada: vehicle manufacturers have long claimed that the high levels of sulphur found in some Canadian gasoline as well as the widespread use of MMT (methylcyclopentadienyl manganese tricarbonyl) as an octane enhancer impair the effectiveness of emissions control systems, which were designed for American fuel formulations. Vehicle manufacturers claim that both fuel with high levels of sulphur and MMT foul catalytic converters, interfere with the onboard diagnostic (OBD) systems, obligate owners to perform more frequent and extensive vehicle maintenance and, in some cases, require modifications to the emissions controls system (CVMA 1995: 30-31, 1997: Appendix C).

2.Vapor recovery nozzles

Every time gasoline is pumped into the fuel tank of a car, air saturated with gasoline vapors is forced out to make room for the incoming fuel and released into the surrounding air. Approximately one gram of VOCs is released for every litre put into the tank. Vapor recovery nozzles (``stage II'') at gasoline pumps, which are common in many American states, can trap 85 percent to 95 percent of that vapor and draw it back into the main storage tank. They have been found to reduce VOCs emissions at a cost of $2,000 to $4,000 per tonne (US$) (GVRD 1996: 3-9), a cost considerably lower than AirCare, which costs at least $33,000 per tonne of VOCs reduced (Coninx 1996b: 57). Use of stage II nozzles is estimated to raise the price of gasoline about 0.6 cents per litre (GVRD 1996: 7-36). However, unlike I/M programs, vapor recovery nozzles involve no extra trips, repairs, or other expenses that must be paid by the consumer. Stage II nozzles are not used anywhere in Canada

The future ambient-air benefit from vapor recovery nozzles will decline as a growing proportion of vehicles in use are equipped with on-board refueling vapor recovery (ORVR) systems but they will still provide substantial reduction in VOCs at least throughout the next decade. With the advent of ORVR, the cost-effectiveness of vapor recovery nozzles in the period from 1996 to 2015 is estimated to be as much as $17,200 per tonne of VOCs (GVRD 1996: 5-28). Finally, reductions in VOCs will have slight effect on ozone levels in areas where the formation of ozone is predominately limited by NOx (see Appendix 4).

Although less expensive than AirCare, vapor recovery nozzles are still expensive. But, they have an additional benefit over other pollution reduction strategies. Anyone who has used these devices can tell the difference they make when refueling; the absence of a gasoline smell is a clear benefit for motorists, passengers and passers-by both in terms of health and personal comfort. It may well be that, under the right conditions and with the continuing popularity of self-service filling stations, consumers may make a decision to pay an extra 30 or 40 per tank to avoid the unpleasant smell of gasoline vapors while incidentally improving the environment.

3.Roadside Remote Sensing

Two-thirds of the total cost of AirCare during Year 3 was in fees, lost time, and the expense of having vehicles tested; only one-third went toward repair of emission-control systems. One of the weakest aspects of the conventional I/M strategy is the cost and inconvenience that it causes by requiring every motorist to drive to a test centre once every year or two as it attempts to identify the 5 to 20 percent of vehicles that produce excessive emissions. Not only is this procedure extremely costly but it is also particularly vulnerable to cheating. As Donald Stedman, professor of chemistry at the University of Denver and the inventor of a remote-sensing device, testified before at a hearing before a United States Congressional Committee, one might as well hold scheduled breathalyzer tests to catch drunk drivers.

Conventional I/M strategy is stuck in the 1970s. Its supporters appear to be oblivious to the impressive technological advances that have been made in the design of motor vehicles and emissions-sensing equipment. One of these advances is in the area of roadside remote sensing (RRS). Remote sensing uses a device similar to the radar gun used for catching speeders to measure VOCs, CO, and NOx emissions from the side of the road as each vehicle passes by.

A large and growing body of research shows that roadside remote sensing can effectively identify vehicles with high emissions for a tiny fraction of the cost incurred by using fixed-location I/M tests. RRS completely eliminates the cost and inconvenience that is currently imposed on drivers of ``clean'' vehicles and also eliminates many of the fundamental flaws found in scheduled I/M tests that permit cheating, short-lasting repairs made only to pass the I/M test, and the ``summer cottage effect,'' i.e., registering vehicles outside an I/M region to avoid the required test. Unlike I/M, RRS provides a constant deterrent to motorists who may well be aware that their vehicles are polluting excessively because of an illuminated OBD indicator on the dash (see below) but are tempted to drive anyway. RRS can provide authorities with an effective means to ensure that the OBD systems now found in vehicles will be fully utilized.

RRS is also much more equitable than I/M because the more a vehicle is driven, the more often it will be tested. Vehicles that are not driven very much do very little damage to the regional air quality, regardless of their condition, and may seldom, if ever, be tested by RRS. This automatically reduces the number of cases where equity issues arise (e.g., how much does the government force a poor person or pensioner to pay in repairs in order to keep the vehicle) with no significant loss to the effectiveness to the program.

Just before announcing its conventional I/M program, Ontario had put RRS into service for a short period. The RRS device was set up in a van dubbed the Smog Rover, which was run by a crew of three students and a supervisor from the Ministry of Environment and Energy (MOEE). Although the Smog Rover was capable of measuring the two ozone precursors, VOCs and NOx, it was only used to measure CO, which is not a smog-related emission. In fact, the whole exercise appeared to be only a public relations gimmick to ``increase public awareness about the importance of driving well-tuned vehicles to reduce smog'' (MOEE, News Release, July 18, 1997).

A close look at the results from the operation of the Smog Rover, however, further confirms the absurdity of conventional I/M programs in light of readily available alternatives. Working no more than 3 hours per day over 26 days, and with a reported budget of $15,000 (Toronto Star, July 23, 1997), the Smog Rover was able to perform 20,908 measurements at no inconvenience to motorists. The cost of testing the same number of vehicles--including motorist expense and inconvenience--in Ontario's proposed Drive Clean I/M program will be $1,030,400, almost 70 times the identification cost of RRS. If only the highest polluting 5 percent of the vehicles that the Smog Dog measured were repaired, excess pollution from vehicles would be reduced by over 60 percent at very low cost and minimal disruption to motorists. Instead, Ontario announced a program that, when fully implemented, will cost residents of that province approximately $120 million every year (or, $1 million every three days) in test fees, expenses, and time lost just to test the vehicles.

Finally, RRS involves little political and economic risk because unlike conventional I/M programs or even the use of vapor recovery nozzles, an RRS program does not require large investments in land and equipment. RRS can be set up quickly and relatively inexpensively using a number of small vans or small roadside boxes that can be easily increased or decreased as the need occurs. RRS is the most promising strategy in the many regions in the United States where there currently is a real need to identify vehicles producing excessive emissions.

4.On-board diagnostics (OBD)

When a modern vehicle begins to produce excessive emissions, it is almost always because something is broken, not because something ``went out of tune.'' For many years, an increasing number of motorists have been instantly informed of many types of emissions-control failure by a malfunction indicator light (MIL) on the dashboard. The MIL is turned on by an on-board computer that simultaneously sets a code in the computer's memory to inform any mechanic of the probable cause of the failure. This capability, called on-board diagnostics (OBD), has been in widespread use since the early 1980s. A second generation of OBD has been required by law on all automobiles manufactured in the United States after 1994. This OBD II indicates virtually any mechanical or electrical failure that is likely to cause emissions of VOCs, CO, or NOx in excess of the vehicle's certification standard by 50 percent. OBD II monitors the vehicle's emission-control system every second the vehicle is operating and records any significant problems so that even intermittent failures can be easily diagnosed. The arrival of OBD II has made even the so-called high-tech tail-pipe tests used in today's I/M programs hopelessly obsolete.

California is now working on a version of OBD II that incorporates transponders to transmit information about failures in a vehicle's emissions-control system and a vehicle identification code to roadside receivers that can process information from up to six lanes of traffic simultaneously. OBD III will probably never be necessary in Canada but the technology may be useful in such regions as southern California where emissions from cars and light trucks will continue to cause severe pollution problems well into the foreseeable future.

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Last Modified: Wednesday, October 20, 1999.