During the last fiscal (ended in March), over 1.7 million vehicles approached the technical inspection centers in Tehran, the Tehran Vehicle Technical Inspection Bureau said.
The figure is almost 20% higher than the year before with 1.3 million visits, the head of the bureau Navab Hosseini told YJC.
"Of the total vehicles that came to the test centers last year, more than 1.2 million lacked the mandatory technical conformity papers and had approached the centers for the first time."
It is worth mentioning that 718,000 tested vehicles did poorly in the tests. "They did not conform to the standards of technical inspection assessments and were rejected.”
The test failures were mostly due to high levels of toxic emissions or troubled brake system, shock absorbers and wheel axles.
Close to 640,000 vehicles received normal and 350,000 vehicles received premium technical inspection certificate during the 12 months.
The premium certificate has higher standards than that of the normal technical inspection certificates. While in the normal tests, vehicles’ emissions are monitored in a low-speed performance, for qualifying for the premium certificate the carbon monoxide emission of cars is assessed at 2,500 rpm.
Hosseini said the visit to the inspection centers reached its peak in November when the Air Pollution Reduction (APR) scheme was launched by the Tehran Municipality.
The scheme bans old and dilapidated vehicles from plying the roads in the overcrowded capital and violators are detected by traffic surveillance cameras or the traffic police and are fined.
All four and two-wheelers in the metropolis are required to go through mandatory inspections and receive technical papers that confirm the vehicle is roadworthy.
According to Hosseini, within the four months after the launch of APR on November 24, over two million dilapidated cars were fined.
"This figure was almost equal to the number for the rest of the year."
The number of vehicles fined since the beginning of the last fiscal until the implementation of APR (8 months) reached 2.4 million.
