Drivers can now test vehicle emissions while on the road

Northern Virginia drivers no longer have to visit a service station for their annual vehicle emissions testing, thanks to a new on-road testing program authorized by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ).

RapidPass Virginia, the system developed by motor vehicle inspection company Opus Inspection and unveiled in Falls Church on Jan. 7, lets drivers complete their required emissions testing by passing through one of 15 mobile inspection stations set up throughout Northern Virginia.

Drivers will then receive a letter notifying them that they passed their test and can pay the $28 inspection fee by mail or online.

“This is really a system for the motorists’ convenience, giving folks the opportunity to save some time for those vehicles that are super, super clean,” said Jim Sands, president of Opus Inspection, the company that developed the new emissions testing equipment through its subsidiary Envirotest (or Etest) Corp. “If you get a notice, we encourage you to participate.”

RapidPass is the latest development in Air Check Virginia, the DEQ emissions inspection program established after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency determined that Virginia doesn’t meet federal air quality standards set by 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act.

The RapidPass emissions testing equipment consists of two green boxes that are placed across from each other on either side of the road. The boxes emit infrared and ultraviolet light beams that detect the plume of smoke ejected by passing vehicles, measuring hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide and nitric oxide exhaust emissions.

Developed by Etest around 25 years ago, this technology has actually been in use in Virginia since 1996, when the state started using an on-road testing system to identify high-polluting vehicles.

The state legislature approved the expanded use of an updated version of the testing equipment for detecting clean vehicles in 2012, resulting in the creation of the RapidPass program.

In addition to saving drivers the time and effort expended visiting a service station for an emissions test, RapidPass provides more comprehensive data on vehicle emissions for Virginia, according to former delegate Joe May, who sponsored the clean vehicle testing bill while on the House of Delegates’ transportation committee.

“With the roadside bands, we can actually look at the entire population in a single year, so we’re able to keep much better tabs on which cars are clean,” May said. “Equally, if you have a bad polluting car, we’ll see it much quicker because they go by almost every day. It really is a tremendous improvement over what we’re able to do now.”

Because RapidPass collects data on vehicles while they’re operating in a real-world environment, it can also provide a more accurate understanding of the state of vehicle emissions in Virginia, though the testing equipment won’t operate when it’s raining or snowing since precipitation can throw off the readings.

Marked by large orange signs that read “Emissions monitory ahead”, the mobile inspection stations will be distributed throughout Fairfax, Loudoun, Arlington, Prince William and Stafford counties, as well as the cities of Alexandria, Fairfax, Falls Church, Manassas and Manassas Park.

RapidPass will rotate the stations every week among more than 150 different locations so that the program can capture a variety of vehicles instead of catching the same drivers on their commute to work every day. The current locations at any given time can be found on rapidpassvirginia.org.

To showcase its new program, the Virginia DEQ has already invited at least one Northern Virginia resident to try out the testing system.

When Alexandria resident Matt Howard got a letter from the DEQ notifying him of the new emissions testing option, he initially dismissed it as junk mail since he hadn’t heard of RapidPass before. However, once he figured out how RapidPass worked, he says that it was an easy process as he simply had to go online to pay the inspection fee.

“I think it’s a great program. Folks ought to open their letter when they get it, because it’s going to make their life a little easier,” Howard said.

The RapidPass option is voluntary, so people who would prefer to get their emissions test done at a traditional inspection station can still do that.

To avoid redundancies from people passing through stations multiple times, the RapidPass testing equipment will only pick up vehicles that are within four months of their registration expiration date, according to Sands.

While Northern Virginia is the first region in the state to use on-road emissions testing, other states, including Colorado and Texas, have already implemented similar programs.

RapidPass may expand to other localities around Virginia if their pollutant levels worsen. May says that many areas, particularly metropolitan centers like Richmond, Hampton Roads and Roanoke, are on the verge of needing to require emissions testing.

“Northern Virginia has extremely dense traffic, and the other jurisdictions are right behind it,” May said. “If [RapidPass] works well here, we should be able to afford the same advantages for the other jurisdictions, because they don’t want to have to go in and have their cars tested at a service station.”