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The sampling protocol proposed by the international PMP program for determination of particle emissions from clean light-duty vehicles was applied to the emissions from a California heavy-duty trap-equipped diesel truck. CARB is interested in developing opinions about the potential of this new European approach for emission determination and in exploring its utility for use in California. In this exercise, the use of various commercially available instruments for counting and sizing particles in the context of the PMP recommendations are explored. A single vehicle on a chassis dynamometer was exercised over steady-state and transient cycles. Multiple measurements of gaseous, mass, and particle emissions were collected in order to determine statistical significance. The PMP approach yielded particle emission measurements with higher precision and accuracy than the reference mass-based emission measurement.

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) adopted the Low Emission Vehicle (LEV) III regulations in January 2012, which lowered the particulate matter (PM) emissions standards for light-duty vehicles (LDVs) from 10 milligrams per mile (10 mg/mile) to 3 mg/mile beginning with model year (MY) 2017 and 1 mg/mile beginning with MY 2025. To confirm the ability to measure PM emissions below 1 mg/mile, a total of 23 LDVs (MY pre-2004 to 2009) were tested at CARB's Haagen-Smit Laboratory (HSL) (10 LDVs) and the United States Environmental Protection Agency's (US EPA) National Vehicle and Fuel Emissions Laboratory (NVEFL) (13 LDVs) using the federal test procedure (FTP) drive schedule. One LDV with PM emissions ranging from 0.6 - 0.8 mg/mile was tested at three CARB HSL test cells to investigate intra-lab and inter-lab variability. Reference, trip, and tunnel filter blanks were collected as part of routine quality control (QC) procedures.

Light duty gasoline vehicles (LDGV) are estimated to contribute 40% of the total on-road mobile source tailpipe emissions of particulate matter (PM) in California. While considerable efforts have been made to reduce toxic diesel PM emissions going into the future, less emphasis has been placed on PM from LDGVs. The goals of this work were to characterize a small fleet of visibly smoking and high PM emitting LDGVs, to explore the potential PM-reduction benefits of Smog Check and of repairs, and to examine remote sensing devices (RSD) as a potential method for identifying high PM emitters in the in-use fleet. For this study, we recruited a fleet of eight vehicles covering a spectrum of PM emission levels. PM and criteria pollutant emissions were quantified on a dynamometer and CVS dilution tunnel system over the Unified Cycle using standard methods and real time PM instruments.