Science Centres: Energy

How are your emissions?

NIWA has acquired the Accuscan RSD4000EN remote sensor and will be putting it to work for the Auckland Regional Council in October and November. It will enable us to analyse vehicle emissions by vehicle age, fuel type, origin (imported or New Zealand new), distance travelled, and WoF status.

In April 2003, NIWA successfully collected emissions data from over 40 000 vehicles in the Auckland region using similar remote sensing technology.

One interesting fact that came out of the 2003 study was that imported Japanese used vehicles emitted lower levels of pollutants than New Zealand new vehicles manufactured in the same year. The data have been used to devise potentially effective vehicle emission control strategies by identifying the sections of the fleet containing large proportions of 'gross emitters' and which would therefore benefit most from inspection and maintenance schemes.