The JRC’s Vehicle Market Surveillance Facilities serve the European Commission in its task to organise and carry out tests and inspections to verify that vehicles, systems, components and separate technical units comply with the relevant environmental and safety requirements.
The tests and inspections are performed, inter alia, by means of laboratory and on-road tests, based on statistically relevant samples, and supplemented by documentary checks.
The laboratories provide the possibility to simulate real world driving conditions in a very wide range of conditions of temperature, humidity and ambient pressure.
The laboratory facilities consist of two emission test cells equipped with:
- 4x4 roller benches for light duty vehicles (passenger cars and commercial vehicles) that can simulate the driving conditions on the road up to a maximum speed of 180 km/h. The roller benches can be used either to follow legislative driving cycles or to reproduce trips on public roads (simulating the slope as well).
- Air conditioning systems to vary the internal temperature and humidity of the two test cells over a wide range of values (from -10 ̊C to +50 ̊C). In this way, it is possible to verify the environmental related performance as well as other aspects (e.g. the range in the case of electric vehicles) in different and well-defined ambient conditions, something that would be otherwise impossible on road due to the seasonal variations and the unpredictability of the weather.
- A complete exhaust gas sampling system and state-of-the-art measuring equipment for regulated and unregulated pollutants and other parameters.
- An altitude simulator in one of the facilities that can allow reproducing a trip on the road with significant altitude and temperature variations.
The adjoining area houses a workshop where the vehicles are prepared for both the tests in the laboratory and on-road, as well as by a soak area where the vehicle are conditioned at specific temperatures as required by the Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicle Test Procedure.
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