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Press
Releases - 2000
Adequate
supporting facilities for LPG taxis
In response
to media enquiries, a spokesman for the Environmental Protection
Department said today (December 4) that there were sufficient
supporting facilities for taxis running on liquefied petroleum
gas (LPG) as well as pre-Euro light diesel vehicles retrofitted
with particulate traps.
The spokesman
said an inter-departmental task force led by the Environment
and Food Bureau had been set up to coordinate the provision
of supporting facilities for LPG taxis.
The Government
has also held meetings with taxi merchants' associations with
a view to assisting the trade to switch to LPG taxis as early
as possible.
As regards
the provision of filling stations, the Government has through
public tenders allocated five sites premium free for the first
batch of dedicated LPG filling stations.
These
sites are located in different areas to facilitate the filling
of LPG by taxis.
"With
the five dedicated stations coming into operation, Hong Kong
has a total of 12 filling stations with refilling capacity
standing at 8000 LPG taxis.
"As there
are about 3 000 LPG taxis at the moment, the facilities can
certainly meet their demand," the spokesman said.
The Government
is discussing with oil companies retrofitting more LPG filling
facilities at their existing petrol stations.
In addition,
the Government would allocate more premium-free land for setting
up dedicated LPG filling stations.
The target
of the Government is to provide adequate LPG filling capacity
for the entire fleet of 18 000 taxis by the end of 2001.
On maintenance
of LPG taxis, the Vocational Training Council has trained
more than 400 LPG vehicle mechanics and the Electrical and
Mechanical Services Department (EMSD) has approved 18 LPG
vehicle maintenance workshops.
The Government
believes that more workshops would be set up with more LPG
taxis coming on stream.
The spokesman
pointed out that only the maintenance of the LPG system of
LPG taxis was needed to be carried out at LPG vehicle maintenance
workshops approved by the EMSD. Other maintenance work of
LPG vehicles can be conducted by ordinary garages.
The spokesman
said under the government subsidy scheme for retrofitting
particulate traps to pre-Euro light diesel vehicles, the contract
required the supplier of particulate traps to provide sufficient
trap cleaning facilities. Such facilities are not necessarily
set up at oil filling stations.
"At present,
the supplier has set up such facilities at 30 oil filling
stations. As only 4 000 vehicles have retrofitted with the
particulate traps under the government scheme, the number
of the facilities is adequate.
"The
Government would ask the supplier to set up more trap cleaning
facilities to better facilitate drivers," the spokesman noted.
End/Monday,
December 4, 2000
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