Mohammad Reza Dezfulian the Automotive and heavy trucks after-sales services expert and Industrial Engineering graduate from the Sharif University of Technology has given a speech on the captioned subject.
DUBAI, UAE, March 29, 2021 /Neptune100/ —
What kinds of vehicles are great contributors to air pollution?
The prime movers of air pollution derived from different aspects, in particular, fossil fuel burning, activities in the agricultural sector, exhaust from factories and industries, mining operations, and indoor air pollution. Pollutants emitting from vehicles including trucks, buses, cars, trains, and airplanes cause immense amounts of pollution. These pollutants change as vehicles age or as their mileage increases. Dilapidated vehicles are listed as one of the main causes of air pollution in megacities of developing countries. Aged vehicles with their deterioration effects have long been considered as great contributors to air pollution. People in developing countries rely on these vehicles to fulfill their daily lives, but their overuse is killing our environment and toxic gases are polluting the air.
Why a fleet renovation?
To address this issue, many governments in the world have thought of fleet renovation as a solution to the complication. The combination of customer expectations and rapidly changing technology with the traditional cost/benefit analysis and new regulatory requirements has rendered the resolution process of fleet renovation in the world. Whilst in the past means of transport was designed to last for years, the technological revolution together with resolutions to resolve environmental issues has transformed the market dynamics considerably.
Concerns on the way of fleet renovation
Mohammad Reza Dezfulian stated that fleet procurement is influenced by different categories like political, technological, financial, social, operational, ridership, governance and regulatory, and environmental. He stressed that the environmental and governance factors could be the most dominant in Iran since lawmakers and authorities need to mitigate actions for the programs to reduce air pollution as well as fuel consumption. Despite improvements in technology, serious concerns over fleet renewal and modernization remain as the engagement of key stakeholders and decision-makers from the government is yet to be unascertained. According to Mohammad Reza Dezfulian, there are various benefits to this program including improvements in the services provided to passengers, travel safety, reducing fuel consumption plus car maintenance costs.
Deteriorating the situation and fuel Subsidy
Mohammad Reza Dezfulian stated that utilization of dilapidated fleet with subsidies to fossil fuels i.e. gas or diesel in Iran has resulted in more fuel consumption supporting an industry that drives negative health impacts, local environmental pollution, and climate change impacts and costs. Fuel subsidy that lowers the cost of fuel production raises the price received by energy producers or lowers the price paid by energy consumers. Essentially, it results in nothing but rigging the game in favor of more consumption of oil, gas, or diesel compared to other sources and ultimately lacks any better viable solutions. He further pointed out that fuel subsidies will also take public money away from other uses which could instead go to social spending, health, and development, clean energy, energy access for many other areas important to the public.
Unsuccessful Plans in fleet procurement
Mohammad Reza Dezfulian added that according to authorities there are over three million old vehicles in the country with the number reaching eight million within five years. These vehicles are 40% accountable for air pollution issues of the large cities. Although there have been different governmental supported plans to renovate fleet in the country, these plans have been unsuccessful due to scores of factors and now that the government has come up with the idea of importing used trucks to the country to pinpoint the problem of air pollution it seems that the country will still lag behind the world in terms of proposals to address the issue.
Is fleet renovation the best solution to reduce air pollution?
The question is by importing used trucks and the existing massive proportion of fuel consumption will the elucidated problem of air pollution be solved or it would be best to get to the crux of the problem which lays in the lack of authoritative management? Mohammad Reza Dezfulian claims that with all the finances going into procurements of the scrapped fleet there are no hopes to solve the air pollution catastrophe in big cities in the country because unless fuel consumption will lessen there will not be less air pollution. The point is the government needs to go in search of fuel-efficient vehicles with low greenhouse gas emissions to help the environment and potentially save money on fuel costs at the pump. This connotes that they should be urged to import more efficient and less polluting vehicles like electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, and cleaner burning gas vehicles. He concluded that countries need to take measures to alleviate air pollution be it with the process of fleet renewal or settlement of new regulations about the automotive and transport industry. Procurement of the would-be dumped vehicles needs direct funding, subsidies, loans at favorable rates, governments still have to make provisional resources like land and water to fuel companies at below-market rates.
