The city of Changsha in Hunan province is urging local owners to claim eco labels for their vehicles, Changsha Evening News reported on Friday.

There are still nearly 500,000 vehicles in the city that haven't got their environment protection labels, according to local environmental protection bureau, since the city officially started the issue on Dec 1, 2013. It has given out around 700,000 eco labels so far.

Liu Jin, the head of the municipal vehicle emission control department, said that the local environmental protection department and traffic police will launch traffic control measures to the label-less vehicles as well as yellow label ones - those heavy-polluting vehicles - starting from the beginning of 2015.

The significance of issuing eco labels for vehicles, a nationwide vehicle control measure, lies in several aspects. First, it helps local authorities to identify heavy-polluting labels and makes owners aware that whether their cars are yellow label ones.

Relevant departments will launch further measures on label-less and yellow label vehicles such as traffic restrictions and giving subsidies, to accelerate the weeding out of heavy-polluting vehicles and improve air quality.

A staff member of Henglong Motor Vehicle Detection Company in Changsha county detects the emissions of a car on Nov 20. [Photo by Chen Fei]