To further improve air quality, Guangzhou plans to conduct a 24-hour ban on “yellow label” vehicles across the whole city since May 1st, a final carpet traffic ban since the year 2009.
Relevant person in charge said that, there are remaining 20,000 units “yellow label” vehicles across the city, accounting for 0.9% of municipal vehicle population. But the heavy pollution produced by “yellow label” vehicles forces Guangzhou City to take measures and improve air quality.
The announcement co-published by Guangzhou Environmental Protection Bureau, Guangzhou Public Security Bureau, and Guangzhou Transportation Commission makes it clear that vehicles without environmental labelling will meet 24-hour traffic ban across the city, but military vehicles on urgent tasks, police cars, fire trucks, ambulances and engineering rescue vehicles are not included.
According to Report on Air Pollution Sources in Guangzhou City, vehicle emission pollution is the first source of nitrogen oxides in the air, accounting for 42.9%. It is also the second source of PM2.5 in Guangzhou with a proportion of 19.3%.
Monitoring data shows that the average density of PM2.5 reaches 36 mg/m3 in 2016, while the average density for nitrogen dioxide reaches 46 mg/m3, lower than the number in last year but is still not up to national standards. Relevant findings show that pollutants from one unqualified “yellow label” vehicle amounts to 28 times and 37 times of pollutants from national IV vehicles and national V vehicles.
