Abstract:

While tampering with emission control systems is explicitly prohibited in most Canadian provinces, Alberta being a notable exception, there is a general lack of regulatory means to enforce such prohibition. Currently, inspection and maintenance programs are the only regulatory lever available with some potential to address tampering in Canada. However, these programs which are only used in British Columbia, Ontario and Québec focus on identifying issues related to maintenance and are not designed to deter tampering. As a result, market assessment reveals that several providers exist in Canada which offer the deactivation of emission control systems through, most typically, a combination of hardware removal and re-flashing of the control units. Still, the prevalence of tampering in Canada is not well known, and there are no robust estimates of the prevalence of tampering in heavy-duty vehicles operating in Canada, nor on the impact of tampering on the tailpipe emissions of those vehicles. Given these knowledge gaps, the study used best-available data to develop modeling scenarios that enables to estimate the impact on the emissions inventory from heavy-duty vehicles in Canada and the respective health impacts as a function of the prevalence of tampering.