“The subject of the public is the development, production and supply of custom equipment for the detection of particulate emissions from motor vehicles. For the competition pointed out the Zdopravy.cz server.

Prague wants to take up the fight against the plague, which is used throughout Europe: with diesel cars, from which someone removed a particulate filter. They release huge amounts of highly carcinogenic soot into the air, which is the most dangerous component of car exhalations.

The filters are obligatorily equipped with diesels used in Euro 5 and higher standards, manufactured since 2011. It is a sophisticated system whose service life is limited and replacement is extremely expensive. For ten- or fifteen-year-old cars, it often doesn’t even pay off. The submarine šikuls learned to dismantle the filters, which is one of the unfortunate motorists to continue driving, while the technology narrowed the eye in the pocket with mandatory emissions controls for a few hundred.

This practice soon opened the door to dirty business: cars with broken filters were deliberately brought to us from the west. While in Germany or Austria it did not pass the inspection, in our country it did. After ten years, it cannot be divided that the measurement of air near busy streets is manifested by an inadequately high concentration of solid particles.

Prague first tried street controls in cooperation with the police. The technicians measured the emissions of the smokably cars using a portable device. Unsatisfactory vehicles had to pass an inspection at the MOT within 30 days.

However, the results were meager. First of all, catching pests only at the place and time of the inspection meant a drop in the sea, while employing a lot of people. And above all, most non-compliant vehicles within a thirty days of proper inspection without difficulty. It was enough to leave the obligatory two hundred crowns in the ashtray. The spokesman of the Police of the Czech Republic, Tomáš Daněk, has currently confirmed that out of 240 measurements carried out in 2019, only 20% of vehicles were finally found to be defective.

That the same car would get stuck in the net again and expose the dishonesty of the follow-up inspection was essentially ruled out during random street events. “If the vehicle was not captured directly behind the gate of the emission station, but only after some time lag, it would most likely be very problematic to prove that the existing defect was not detected,” adds a police spokesman.

The municipality is therefore looking for an automated and large-capacity solution. Similar radars that measure the speed of every passing vehicle. An ideal option for effective supervision, but with a significant catch: reliable technology does not yet exist.

“Similar detectors still exist only for gaseous components of emissions. Various experiments and pilot studies are being carried out on solid particles all over the world,” explains Michal Vojtíšek from the Center for Sustainable Mobility at the CTU Faculty of Mechanical Engineering.

The optical principle is not enough here, because the carbon black is too small. The measurement will probably have to use several measurement methods at the same time. Michal Vojtíšek very simply compares this to a combination of speed measurement by radar and sensors located in the roadway, such as are used for dynamic weighing of trucks. Even so, the detection will have only limited accuracy, and only the repetition of findings in the same car will lead to suspicion. The driver will then be asked to undergo technical inspections.

This leads to the second nut. Amend the ordinance on road traffic so that sinners cannot go to more and more inspections, where they would go through minor notices. “This contract is intended to help obtain arguments for legislative change through measured values. The preparation of a proposal for recommended legislative changes is also part of the performance of the contract,” confirmed Tadeáš Provazník from the press department of the municipality.

Ironically, Prague is embarking on the whole thing at a time when the Ministry of Transport’s supervision of emission stations is finally starting to work. The chances of fixing have drastically decreased, so that unsuitable vehicles will begin to disappear in a natural way. However, the problem of removed filters is extremely urgent and they only go to mandatory inspections every two years. The Prague system will watch the air daily and in more detail.