TEHRAN – Tehran Municipality has obliged the private sector to equip 10 percent of their buses with diesel particulate filters each year, Mohsen Pourseyyed Aqaei, deputy mayor of Tehran for traffic and transport affairs, has said.

A diesel particulate filter is a device designed to remove diesel particulate matter or soot from the exhaust gas of a diesel engine by 85 percent, and under certain conditions can attain soot removal efficiencies approaching 100 percent.

“Each filter costs nearly 1 billion rials (about $23,000),” ISNA quoted Pourseyyed Aqaei as saying on Tuesday.

Public transport fleet, operating within Tehran municipality, also has been supposed to buy diesel particulate filters for 700 buses running in the capital, he said, adding that so far, some 100 filters have been purchased and debates are underway to buy 100 more.

It is scheduled that all private bus companies must install diesel particulate filters on 10 percent of the buses per year.He went on to say that “we have been waiting for the filter purchase process for Tehran’s bus transport fleet to be completed, then to oblige the private sector to equip their buses with the filters, as well.”

“It is scheduled that all private bus companies must install diesel particulate filters on 10 percent of the buses per year,” he stated, adding as the largest private bus company has 300 buses, 10 percent of which accounts for only 30 buses, no heavy financial burden are imposed on them.

The Municipality’s transportation and traffic department is also supposed to increase the subsidies granted to the buses equipped with filters to compensate for part of the costs, he concluded.

According to health or environmental officials over 70 percent of pollutants in Iran’s capital, Tehran, is produced by clunker buses. In a press conference held on January 13 in Tehran, deputy environment chief Masoud Tajrishi said that some 97 percent of buses in Tehran are old. 

Moreover, on February 7, Mohammad Javad Heshmati, deputy prosecutor general, said that more than 80 percent of the air pollution in metropolises is caused by low quality fuel. 

So it is not so farfetched to conclude that air pollution in Tehran and other metropolises of Iran are derived from low quality fuel and the old transportation system.

FB/MQ/MG