The removal and treatment of heavy-polluting vehicles will be accelerated and plans to reduce construction site dust will be stepped up, Du Shaozhong, deputy director of the Beijing environmental protection bureau, told a news conference.

The city will also require heavily-polluting companies to address their pollution problems as a prerequisite to resuming operations after the Games, he said.

As of yet there are no plans to continue with the odd-even license plate restriction once the Olympics has finished, despite its success in cutting pollution and calls for the continuation of the measure.

Figures released Saturday showed that since the opening of the Games on 8 Aug, the city’s air quality has ranged from between excellent and fairly good on the pollution index, the cleanest for any summer period in the past 10 years.

The average daily air pollution index (API) so far this month was 56, far below 81 reported last year. Major air pollutants on average dropped 40 percent over the same period last year, with nitrogen oxide emissions directly related to vehicles down by 61 percent, according to the bureau.