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Vehicle Inspection and Maintenance Policies and Programme –
Sri Lanka
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1. Introduction
The active road vehicle population of 1,023,000 in 2000 has consumed 660.2 million liters of
diesel and 278.40 million liters of petrol. Railways have consumed 399.9 million liters of diesel
in 2000. The estimated base data of annual emission from the transport sector for year 2000 has
been estimated as follows;
CO 2.014 million kg
NOx 0.290 million kg
SOx 1.231 million kg
Aldehydes 1.053 million kg
The Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) has implemented the Ambient Air Quality program in the
city of Colombo establishing two fixed air quality monitoring stations; one in area where high
density of transport sector air pollution occurred (Central Business District of the City of
Colombo called Fort) and the other in a low density transport zone (Meteorological Dept. Site).
One mobile unit is available to monitor the area where needs arise. These stations were given by
the Ministry of Transport and Environment (MOTE) to the Central Environment Authority (CEA)
for continues monitoring. Average age of the active vehicle fleet is 6.2 years, which is relatively
higher compared to international standards. In general, Sri Lankans have poor maintenance
practices. It is now estimated that around 12,000 motor cars have converted to LPG, which is
considered as an environment friendly cleaner fuel, however, no regulations are passed by the
GOSL on the safety of the registered LPG driven vehicles by the Commissioner of Motor Traffic
(CMT). The main constraint emerging is that the lack of appropriate vehicle maintenance and
proper vehicle testing program at the point of registration or issuing the roadworthiness
certificate. There is investment constraint to upgrade the vehicle fleet, to have more fuel
efficiency vehicles and to use the environment friendly vehicles. Pricing policy of the country
has influenced to have second graded fleet (used vehicle) and low fuel efficient vehicles with
poor conditions (e.g.: increase of small diesel vehicle fleet, increase of low fuel efficient re-
conditioned vehicles and high consumption of diesel fuel). The pricing policy and nature of
monopoly market (oil company own by the government) of major petroleum product has
distortion demand for fuel, further to supply high sulfur diesel and leaded petrol. The details are
discussed in proceeding sections.
2. Fleet Structure and Emission Levels
The vehicle ownership ratio in Sri Lanka was 28:1 in 1991 and reduced to 20:1 in 2000. Per
capita petrol consumption has increased from 12.7 liters in 1991 to 15.9 liters in 2000. The per
capita diesel consumption has increased from 28.7 liters in 1999 to 54.7 liters in 2000. This
shows that per capita petrol consumption has increased by 23% and per capita diesel consumption
by 92%. The past decade of steady economic growth has resulted in sharp changes in the fleet
mix. For example, Graph-1 highlights the changes in taxi service: imports of 3-wheelers from
India started only after liberalization in 1978 but have grown rapidly during the 1990’s. In the
early 1980s typical Colombo Taxi was an aged Morris Minor, replaced after liberalization by
reconditioned second-hand Japanese cars: the number of petrol taxies peaked at around 8,700 in
1991, falling to 5,900 by 1997. Clearly the recent explosive growth of 3-wheelers has met a need
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Jayaweera, Don S. – Ph.D. in Transport Planning , MIT,USA, M.Sc.(Town & Country Planning),
UOM,SL, M.Sc.(Computer Science), UOC,SL, B.Dev.(Statistics) Special, UOSJP,SL and Deputy Director
Planning of Ministry of Transport and Environment, Sri Lanka
