Although Montenegro is still below the European average when it comes to the number of cars per thousand inhabitants, air pollution with exhaust gases is significant due to the high average age of cars - more than 16 years.
This is claimed by Radoje Vujadinović, a professor at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering who has been dealing with air and environmental pollution caused by cars for years.
In addition to being involved in the teaching process, Vujadinović is also the head of the Center for Engines and Vehicles of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of the University of Montenegro, which controls the fulfillment of requirements for motor vehicles during importation and numerous other professional tasks. He told "Vijesta" that in Montenegro there are no special analyzes of how much cars pollute the air, while such research is widely conducted in the world.
Research by the World Health Organization (WHO) has shown that the emission of exhaust gases kills about four times as many people as die in traffic accidents...
"When it comes to the emission of carbon dioxide (CO2) as a greenhouse gas, transport is the only sector that is still growing. Although a more developed transport infrastructure and an increase in the number of motor vehicles on the one hand mean a better life for humanity, on the other hand the pollution caused by the transport sector is also increasing", said Vujadinović.
Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency registered high levels of air pollution in the central and northern cities of Montenegro - the presence of PM particles in the air was recorded eight times higher than the permitted...
For residents of Montenegro, air pollution has become a regular occurrence in winter, when the heating season begins, and for years it has been most critical in Pljevlje...
Vujadinović explained that exhaust gases from cars also contribute significantly to air pollution, and that there is an authorized institution that measures the level of harmful substances in the air. When it comes to traffic pollution monitoring, there is room for improvement.
"This is very expensive equipment for air quality monitoring. However, the measuring station, which is located near an intersection in Podgorica, shows that air pollution increases significantly during periods of heavy traffic jams - at the time of going to work and returning home," said Vujadinović.
He explained that burning fossil fuels in motor vehicles releases toxic components - carbon monoxide, nitrogen and sulfur oxides, unburned hydrocarbons, soot particles that end up in the air.
The consequences of this are, above all, damage to the health of citizens who inhale harmful gases and numerous negative impacts on the environment (photochemical smog, acid rain, damage to the ozone layer...) Also, the emission of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main gas, is very important with the greenhouse effect that contributes to climate change, the consequences of which are increasingly visible.
EU standards
Air pollution, which is caused by vehicles, was the first to be dealt with in the seventies of the last century in California, when there was smog in Los Angeles sampled by the large use of motor vehicles. It was then that the first regulations were passed that limit certain toxic components in vehicle exhaust gases. After the USA, there followed the development of legislation in Europe, which today is known as Euro norms. The Euro 1 standard entered into force in 1992, and the current standard is Euro 6, which has been binding since 2014. The standards were initiated by the harmful effects that exhaust gases from vehicles have on human health and the environment. Vujadinović claims that the norms encouraged innovations in the automotive industry in terms of the development of "systems for the subsequent treatment of exhaust gases", that is, numerous catalysts, filters and other technologies that led to almost zero emission of toxic components in new vehicles.
It is certainly important to emphasize the development of alternative fuels and drives, the most developed of which is the electric drive (electric vehicles). "One vehicle that meets the regulations of the Euro 1 standard pollutes the air with solid particles (PM) as much as 28 vehicles that meet the regulations of Euro 6", explained Vujadinović.
He said that it would be utopian to expect that everyone in Montenegro automatically drives cars that meet Euro 5 and Euro 6 standards, and that the others are recycled or exported to less developed countries. Renewing the vehicle fleet with more energy and environmentally friendly vehicles is, he claims, an expensive and long-term process, but it can still be intensified with certain measures.
"You cannot expect someone who receives an average salary of around 500 euros to buy a new car at an authorized dealer's showroom. Personally, I would be satisfied, to begin with, only if about 12.000 so-called vehicles were taken out of service, or replaced with newer ones. 'Euro 0', which are older than 30 years", said the professor.
He assessed that this process is in direct correlation with the economic standard of the population, which instead of replacing the old vehicle with a new one, buys relatively old cars. Data on registered vehicles in 2018 show that the average age of cars in Montenegro is over 16 years (year 2003), i.e. cars that met the Euro 3 standard (January 01, 01).
Vujadinović said that his analyzes show that the average age of cars gradually increases every year. The main reason, he claims, is the small percentage of new vehicle purchases, because according to available data, only about 2018 new cars were purchased in 3.000.
He said that it is worrying that more than 60.000 registered cars in Montenegro are older than 20 years.
He assessed that citizens do not have a true idea of how much a car contributes to their monthly expenses. "Citizens most often think that the cost of fuel is the only monthly cost for a car. However, their car loses its market value every year, there are also the costs of maintenance, repairs, registration, tire replacement, parking costs, tolls, very often the costs of fines for violating traffic regulations. Colleagues from Slovenia, by means of an extensive research, and using all the mentioned parameters, came up with a formula with which you can quantify how much a car costs you on average per month, that is, how many days you need to work for your car. Using that formula, I calculated that driving the owner's 'golf 2' vehicle costs almost 200 euros per month, which is more than a third of the average salary in Montenegro. I am of the opinion that after applying this algorithm to their family, our citizens would have a harder time deciding to purchase a second or third car in the household, as is the case now," explained Vujadinović.
Subsidies for minor polluters
Vujadinović says that Montenegro should start solving the problem of exhaust gases in traffic as soon as possible, because later it will be much more difficult, and therefore more expensive. He points out that it is necessary to implement the "Energy Efficiency in Traffic" project as soon as possible, which would help citizens to buy more energy- and environmentally friendly cars that pollute less. He claims that it would be a similar project to "Energy efficiency in buildings" which, he points out, gave great results. "I think that energy efficiency in traffic is equally important, because with that citizens would have lower costs for fuel, and less fuel would be imported into Montenegro, because we import every liter of fuel, while electricity, the saving of which was the subject of the previously mentioned project , we produce independently. This project would simultaneously reduce our foreign trade deficit, which is a serious problem of the national economy". Vujadinović states that the problem of exhaust emissions would already have to be solved at this stage with stricter controls at regular technical inspections of vehicles during registration. Special attention, he said, should be paid to the control of exhaust emissions of vehicles with diesel engines, of which almost 75 percent are in the fleet of Montenegro. "During technical inspections, the most attention is rightly paid to the control of systems related to traffic safety, while the pollution caused by the vehicle is put in the background. And I explained earlier that relevant research has shown that more people die from pollution than from traffic accidents". It is common knowledge that, due to the high cost of replacement, filters and catalysts installed in vehicles are removed from our cars in order to neutralize as much as possible the emission of toxic components in the air, which contribute to meeting the aforementioned Euro norms.
In addition, Vujadinović points out that the state must seriously deal with the recycling of cars and parts, especially tires, which are also a major polluter.
The most important thing, he claims, is to change people's awareness of healthy lifestyles - not to use a car for short distances, to walk as much as possible, ride a bicycle... He claims that a well-organized city transport would play a significant role in that regard, because mass passenger transportation replaces the need for a large number of individual cars.
In Europe, the current story is about zero emissions in public transport, that is, the electrification of city transport. Due to the current high price of electric buses, Vujadinović believes that it is not realistic to expect this in our country at this time.
"Electrification of traffic is something that has a certain future. In Montenegro, there are already several places for charging electric cars, and two companies that deal with auto-taxi transportation in Podgorica have included electric cars in their fleet. Cars that use electricity for propulsion do not emit harmful gases and do not pollute the environment, but on the condition that the electricity they use for propulsion is produced from renewable sources of electricity. If electricity is produced by a thermal power plant, which is an even bigger polluter, the desired effect has not been achieved. It is very important that in the last decade in Montenegro, wind farms, small hydroelectric power plants, solar power plants have been built, so that we ourselves produce 'fuel' for electric cars, which will be more and more on our roads every day".
Vujadinović pointed out that the Government established the "Eco-fund" at the end of 2018, into which money from polluters will be poured, and which will be spent on environmental protection projects.
He states that it would be fair if the money that would come from traffic polluters was spent on projects aimed at improving energy efficiency in traffic and reducing pollution from exhaust gases, that is, projects aimed at recycling vehicles and parts.
Podgorica is being built for cars, not for people
Vujadinović claims that in the last twenty years he has the impression that Podgorica is being built for cars, not for people. "A large number of streets have been widened with new traffic lanes, and to the detriment of promenades and sidewalks, parking lots are being built in places where there were green areas. Somehow more care was taken to please the car than the man and his health". He points out that human health and safety should always come first and that everything should be subordinated to that. He claims that every year the number of cars in the capital increases, which makes life even more difficult for the people of Podgorica.
"We spend more and more time traveling from home to work, even though we haven't changed our place of residence or workplace for years." That is why, he said, the creation of the "Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan of the Capital City of Podgorica" was launched - a project implemented by GIZ, whose goal is to offer solutions to problems in the functioning of the traffic system, through the improvement of public transport, and the creation of better conditions for cycling and walking, with measures and policies that reduce the use of own cars.
Bonus video:
