Taxi and Private Hire Vehicle Emissions Standards and Age Policy

Overview

This is a consultation to seek the views of licensed hackney carriage and private hire vehicle owners, drivers, operators and members of the public on proposals to introduce emission standards for licensed vehicles.  

Why your views matter

Why is the Council doing this?

You may be aware that there has been a lot of media coverage in recent months about pollution levels in the UK. The main causes of pollution in towns and cities are Nitrogen Oxide and Nitrogen Dioxide (referred to as Nitrogen Oxides), which are produced in the emissions from petrol and diesel vehicles.  Air quality in city centres is a major public health concern. Air pollution is believed to be responsible for up to 900 premature deaths in Birmingham every year. Diesel produces Nitrogen Oxides and minute ‘particulates’ that are harmful to health. Although invisible to the naked eye, this form of pollution is very serious and some of the people who are most affected by it are motorists who spend long hours behind the wheel, such as taxi and private hire drivers.

In 2015 and 2016 the UK government was taken to court by an environmental pressure group called Client Earth. The Supreme Court ruled that the government’s plans to improve air quality were inadequate. It has ordered the government to act in the shortest possible time to reduce pollution levels in major towns and cities to levels that meet the Ambient Air Quality Directive, which has been enacted into British law by the Environment Act 1995. 

How will the Council improve air quality?

The Government has told Birmingham, London, Leeds, Nottingham, Derby and Southampton that they must introduce Clean Air Zones (CAZ) to improve air quality in their city centres by 2020. In order to demonstrate that air quality has improved by 2020 Birmingham must have a CAZ in place and is aiming to do so by 2019, or as soon as possible before then, to be able to collect the necessary statistical data to prove that air quality has improved.

A CAZ is an area where a range of measures are put in place to control pollution.  These can include redirecting the most polluting vehicles away from the worst pollution hotspots, encouraging motorists to use park and ride schemes, making improvements to roads to reduce congestion, and encouraging the use of less polluting fuels such as Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG), Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), hydrogen fuel cells and electrically powered vehicles. One of the measures available to local authorities is taxi and private hire licensing policy which can be used to control the use of vehicles that fail to meet the prescribed vehicle emission standards.

What standards will be applied?

The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has set minimum emissions standards for vehicles to be allowed entry to a CAZ. The standards are expressed according to European vehicle emission standards. Buses, coaches and heavy goods vehicles must all be compliant with Euro 6. Diesel powered vans, hackney carriages and private hire vehicles will also have to meet the Euro 6 standard. Vans, hackney carriages and private hire vehicles powered by petrol will have to meet the lower Euro 4 standard because petrol is less polluting than diesel.

Where will the Clean Air Zone be?

The most polluted locations in Birmingham are in the city centre. Therefore it is likely that the CAZ will encompass the city centre, although at the time of writing the exact boundary has not been determined. Vehicles that do not meet the standard will pay a charge if they enter the zone. The Government has not yet indicated what the scale of the charge may be. 

The timescales that have been set by Government are short, but we have set out below a proposed policy for vehicle licensing which starts in December 2017 and goes through to 2030. The overall objective of the policy is to improve air quality by removing polluting vehicles from the road and encouraging the use of electrically powered vehicles (also known as Ultra Low Emission Vehicles (ULEV)).

Birmingham City Council has applied to the Government for funds to install 197 electric charging points across the city for the use of taxis and private hire vehicles.

What help is available to drivers to update their vehicles?

We recognise that the policy will need many drivers to update their vehicles. The Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV) has grants available of up to £5,000 for private hire drivers and up to £7,500 for hackney carriage drivers if they change their vehicle for a new ULEV vehicle. This is called The Plug-in Car Grant or PICG. https://www.gov.uk/plug-in-car-van-grants

We are in talks with vehicle manufacturers and operators about ways in which they can purchase fleets of ULEV vehicles to hire to drivers. 

We have made funds available to convert 63 hackney carriages from diesel to LPG, which produces very low levels of pollution. We will apply for further funding if the Department for Transport makes it available. These LPG converted vehicles will be licensable until 2021 under the proposed plan. Owners of hackney carriages that have the LPG conversion are required to pay the VAT element of the cost, which is approximately £1,300. We are continuing to look for other sources of government support.