Aged diesel-powered cars weighing over 2.5 tons will be completely banned from entering Seoul and metropolitan areas from 2019 as part of nationwide efforts to reduce air pollution.

On Wednesday, the Seoul Metropolitan Government announced a set of measures to reduce air pollution in the capital city that has worsened in recent years. According to the measures, Seoul metropolitan areas will eventually restrict operations of old diesel vehicles, largely blamed for causing air pollution and raising fine dust concentration, by 2019. About 450,000 diesel vehicles that weigh more than 2.5 tons and have been registered before 2005 are estimated to be on the road in the metropolitan area.

Diesel vehicles registered before 2002 will be restricted starting next year while those registered before June 2004 will be banned from 2018 and those before 2005 from 2019. To effectively monitor violators, the city government will increase the number of closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras in Seoul and nearby satellite cities from the current 7 to 61 by 2019. It will also ask drivers of old diesel cars to install pollution reduction devices while expanding low-emission zones (LEZ) to help reduce air pollution by restricting access of polluting vehicles.

An unnamed official from the Seoul city government said the environment ministry and other local governments have agreed with the measures on restricting aged and heavy diesel vehicles in Seoul as well as Incheon and Gyeonggi areas from 2019. Incheon and 17 cities in Gyeonggi are most likely to participate in the measures in 2018 while other surrounding areas by 2019.

Early last month, the Korean government also announced that it would toughen restrictions on old diesel vehicles nationwide in response to growing public health concerns over increasing fine dust concentration that has worsened the country’s air pollution.

By Baek Sang-kyung and Lee Seung-yoon

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