Controlling diesel truck pollution requires macro and micro parallel
As of the end of June this year, my country's motor vehicle ownership reached 440 million, of which the number of large trucks exceeded 30 million, diesel trucks accounted for the vast majority, and the number of national three heavy trucks still stood at 497,000. As the battle against pollution continues to deepen, the proportion of motor vehicle pollution has become increasingly prominent in some areas. In some areas, the contribution rate of motor vehicle pollution emissions to PM2.5 even reaches about 60%.
In recent years, the country has continuously strengthened the pollution control of motor vehicles, especially diesel trucks. The "Action Plan for the Control of Diesel Truck Pollution" issued in 2022 proposes to adhere to the overall planning of "vehicles, oil, roads, and enterprises". By 2025, the cleanliness and low-carbon degree of the transportation structure and vehicle and vessel structure will be significantly improved, and the national diesel truck emission testing pass rate will exceed 90%, and the proportion of railway freight volume will increase by 0.5 percentage points. The "Opinions on Accelerating the Comprehensive Green Transformation of Economic and Social Development" issued in 2024 require building a green and efficient transportation system, promoting low-carbon transportation tools, accelerating the elimination of old transportation tools, and promoting zero-emission freight transportation. Recently, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment has conducted many investigations on this issue, and relevant regions have also launched special governance work.
There are still shortcomings in pollution control from diesel trucks
Although my country's diesel truck pollution control work has achieved certain results, there are still some shortcomings that need to be improved as soon as possible.
In terms of prevention and control of pollution sources, the adjustment of transportation structure is still slow, and the green transformation of transportation needs to be accelerated urgently. In terms of market size, in the first seven months of this year, my country's road cargo transportation volume reached 23.354 billion tons, a year-on-year increase of 3.6%, accounting for 73.46% of the total cargo transportation. Diesel trucks are still the main transportation force. From the perspective of transportation methods, various transportation methods still have problems of poor connection and coordination. Roads are responsible for the transportation of most medium and long-distance goods and bulk goods. The "one-order system" and "one-box system" of multimodal transport are still being explored. Integrated transportation combination efficiency and service levels are generally not high. Judging from the transportation structure adjustment tasks, the shortcomings in the construction of special railway lines involving "public railways" are still obvious. There is still a big gap between large-scale industrial and mining, ports, and logistics parks to achieve "door-to-door" services. Relevant policy support and financial support are not enough. Some enterprises are limited by insufficient funds, and some enterprises are unable to use railway transportation or have low utilization rates due to difficulties in approving railway construction procedures or difficulty in obtaining supporting capacity indicators after the railway is completed. Against the background of increasing pressure on carbon emission constraints, my country's transportation industry urgently needs to seek breakthroughs from its root causes and structure and accelerate green transformation.
In terms of prevention and control of pollution processes, the pollution of diesel trucks is prominent, and loopholes in motor vehicle detection need to be plugged urgently. Since 2024, Henan, Shandong and other places have exposed a number of typical cases involving diesel trucks illegally damaging various pollution control devices or tampering with emission control equipment. For example, some car owners remove or shield particulate traps (DPF) and post-treatment devices such as selective catalytic reduction systems (SCR) in daily operations, causing equipment failure, or installing urea cheating equipment and simulating urea injection to deceive selective catalytic reduction systems (SCR) detection, resulting in direct discharge of nitrogen oxides in the flue gas. Driven by illegal profits, some motor vehicle testing agencies adjust engine management software such as the On-Board Diagnostic System (OBD) to report erroneous emission data during testing. Some testing agencies have committed illegal activities such as artificially disconnecting or modifying nitrogen oxide sensors, making them unable to detect true emissions, causing diesel trucks exceeding the standard to "pay for over-inspection", seriously disrupting the elimination and renewal process of old trucks. However, due to factors such as difficulty in fixing illegal evidence, insufficient investigation and punishment methods by regulatory authorities, and inadequate maintenance of equipment, relevant departments have not cracked down sufficiently in recent years, and there is an urgent need to further intensify rectification efforts.
In terms of implementing the main responsibility of clean transportation, enterprises in key industries have insufficient investment in pollution control, and the concept of green development needs to be strengthened urgently. Enterprises such as logistics, ports, terminals and mining are major users of diesel trucks, and the proportion of vehicles using national emission standards of No. 5 and below is high. Among them, the logistics industry has long had low thresholds and uneven quality of employees. Most companies have not yet formed a concept of green logistics development. Problems such as the use of inferior oil products and fraud in urea addition are common. Many ports, terminals and mines still have a considerable number of diesel trucks with national emission standards and below, which are frequently used for short-distance transfer. Although their pollutant emissions are several times higher than the national emission standards, there is insufficient motivation for elimination and renewal. In July this year, sales in the domestic heavy truck market fell by 17% month-on-month. Although new energy heavy trucks continued the trend of "not weak in the off-season", the overall sales volume was still small, reflecting to a certain extent that the current demand for the replacement and elimination of high-emission old diesel trucks has not yet been Effectively stimulated, enterprises in key industries urgently need to accelerate the "trade-in" process.
Promote the green transformation of transportation through macro and micro progress
The author believes that in order to solve the problem of pollution control by motor vehicles, especially diesel trucks, and promote the green transformation of transportation, there is an urgent need to go hand in hand with macro promotion and micro governance. It is necessary not only to further promote structural adjustment, but also to improve support policies, and to strengthen collaborative supervision. Make up for the shortcomings.
Strengthen planning guidance and accelerate the adjustment of the transportation structure. All localities should, in accordance with the requirements of the "Opinions on Accelerating the Comprehensive Green Transformation of Economic and Social Development", speed up planning and construction of a green and efficient transportation system, improve the national railway, highway, and water transport networks, strengthen the construction of standard systems in the field of road transportation, and promote a reasonable division of labor in multimodal transport. Effective connection. Accelerate the construction of special freight railways and inland waterway networks, and increase the proportion of green collection and distribution in major ports, large industrial and mining enterprises and logistics parks. Deepen "Internet + freight" and promote the innovative development, transformation and upgrading of the road freight industry.
Strengthen collaborative supervision and resolutely curb pollution chaos. Increase supervision of illegal motor vehicle pollution activities, resolutely eliminate diesel trucks that do not meet environmental protection requirements, and strictly implement the motor vehicle emission inspection and compulsory maintenance system. Strictly crack down on counterfeiting pollution control devices, blocking OBD system functions, substandard exhaust emissions, and failure to disclose environmental protection information in accordance with the law. Strengthen supervision and law enforcement of motor vehicle testing agencies, severely crack down on fraud, strictly implement the policy of prohibiting and restricting heavy diesel trucks, improve the linkage mechanism between public security departments and ecological environment departments, and resolutely curb illegal vehicles on the road.
Improve policy support and cultivate green development concepts. Promote the "old-for-new" campaign for old operating trucks on a large scale, actively guide enterprises in key industries to accelerate the clean renovation of internal vehicles, and carry out demonstrations of green transportation enterprises. Actively promote clean and efficient transportation technology and equipment, promote green heavy truck actions, promote the "bulk cargo to aggregate" transportation model, and promote major ports, large industrial and mining enterprises and logistics parks to accelerate the construction of medium and long-distance transportation, mainly shipping and railway transportation. For short-distance transportation, priority is given to a green transportation system for bulk cargo with closed belt corridors, pipelines or new energy vehicles.
Author's unit: North China Inspection Bureau of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment
