Abstract
Emission reduction program for in-use diesel vehicles (ERPDV) has been enacted since 2004 over the Seoul metropolitan area, and diesel emission reduction is forced to fulfill this regulation. This study was performed to evaluate the ERPDV using $PM_{10}$ concentrations of both road-side monitoring and national background network during the period of 2004-2010. In order to assess the pure road emission, we first eliminated the long range transport effect by deducting the trend of annual national background concentrations from the road-side $PM_{10}$ concentrations, and then analyzed the time series of the resultant $PM_{10}$ concentrations over Seoul metropolitan area. The annual rates of variations of road-side $PM_{10}$ with the deduction of trend of background level show -3.2, +0.4, and -2.4 ${\mu}g/m^3$/year, in Seoul, Incheon, and Gyonggi province, respectively. There are steadily decreasing trend in Seoul with all of statistic parameters such as mean, mediam, 5%ile, 10%ile, 25%ile, 75%ile, 90%ile, and 95%ile concentrations. Incheon shows some fluctuations with positive with no significant trend, and Gyonggi province shows overall decreasing but not consistent. Student-t test shows 95% significant level of ERPDV effect in Seoul, but there exists no significant level greater than 90% in both Incheon, and Kyonggi province. Total annual averaged trend over the whole Seoul metropolitan area is estimated to lie in approximately $-2.9{\mu}g/m^3$/year in this study, implying the intimate involvement of ERPDV to a large extent. This is also suggesting that the further research cost-effectiveness of ERPDV with consideration of the long range transport process would be needed over the Seoul metropolitan area.
