Owners of luxury cars will have the privilege to drive around in any part of Tehran while traffic restrictions will be imposed on inexpensive cars mainly belonging to low-income groups, once the Low Emission Zone (LEZ) plan that will replace the ‘even or odd’ scheme, comes into effect.
Most of the expensive cars are certain to pass emission tests and intentionally or inadvertently the new plan will favor the rich as against the economically non-privileged, reports Tabnak News Agency.
The 118th meeting of the Supreme Traffic Council declared the even-odd plan a failure.
The LEZ system aims to categorize vehicles according to emission standards. Only low-emission vehicles will be allowed to enter the zones on all working days during the week from 6 am till 7 pm.
The policy will also help many imported vehicles get traffic permits while domestically produced vehicles will be denied.
Once implemented, the scheme is likely to face protests by low-income groups.
In addition to social discrimination, the plan also has other flaws.
For example, car emissions cannot be blamed only on technology and quality.
There are several other factors responsible for emissions including fuel quality, and their continuous assessment is quite impossible. Fuel quality is not the same at all petrol stations.
Also based on the law, new domestically-produced cars are exempted from technical inspection stickers for five years.
But cars can get worn out before their fifth year due to rash or negligent driving.
Therefore, categorizing vehicles according to emission standards is not an easy task.
Based on the new plan, vehicles will be categorized under three colors, red (for cars lacking technical inspection stickers), yellow (for those with emission standards below Euro V that include most vehicles in the country), and green (for hybrid or electronic cars with an emission standard above Euro V).
The red code vehicles will not be allowed to enter the LEZ districts. The yellow code vehicles will be bound by the same rule on high-pollution days.
