This year (2019) starting from Oct, the Environmental Protection Administration, Executive Yuan gathered a group of 17 experts in environmental engineering and vehicle mechanics for the national evaluation of diesel-fueled vehicle inspection stations in 19 local administrations. The result came out on the 16th that Hualien County was recognized for its “excellent performance,” the highest honor in the “2019 evaluation of diesel-fueled vehicle emission inspection stations.”
 
EPA led 6 evaluation experts to visit Hualien County for the annual evaluation of the inspection station on Nov 13. The team of experts was first briefed by Chief Chih-Hui Wang of Air and Noise Control Division, Hualien County Environmental Protection Bureau, and the experts were broken into several smaller groups to examine the quality systems in place and vehicle tests in practice. The reasons that the EPA evaluation experts gave their thumbs up for Hualien County diesel-fueled vehicle emission inspection station were the practical planning for the control of all aspects involved, good performance in terms of the promotion of large diesel-fueled vehicle subsidy program, great results of joined inspection and improvement of government images via environmental enhancement. On top of those, the experts were impressed by the license plate identification at the air quality control areas such as Taroko and east coast. All of the above contributed to the unanimous recognition and approval of EPA and evaluation experts on the excellent performance.
 
Director General Chung Rao said that most of mobile air pollution sources are old vehicles, and citizens complain the most about the dark smokes coming out of diesel-fueled vehicles, as diesel-fueled vehicles emit particulate pollutants from their engines, which have been classified by WHO as a Group 1 carcinogen in 2012. As an effort to improve vehicle pollution issues, Hualien County has Hualien Station and Ruisui Station in charge of diesel-fueled vehicle emission inspection and pollution auditing as the first line of defense against diesel-fueled vehicle pollution control. Hualien County Environmental Protection Bureau takes the inspection quality very seriously since this involves giving tickets and citizens’ interests. Apart from maintaining the TAF qualification, the stations perform quality assurance actions such as test with standard vehicles, correlative comparison and in-house instrument calibrations on a regular basis, making the test results more credible. The city will continue to promote more measures for the reduction of transportation vehicle pollution and urge all governmental and private sectors to work together to build Hualien into a low-carbon, sustainable and livable city.