The regulations and the technical specifications for international carriage of perishable foodstuffs and for the special equipment to be used for such carriage are prescribed in the international ATP Agreement. The refrigerated special equipment has to be checked for quality conformity with the ATP standards, at officially designated national ATP test stations. Some of the alternatively proposed ATP testing procedures for checking of the in-service and second-hand refrigerated transport equipment are incomplete and can give incorrect test results. The consequence is increase in energy consumption and an increased environmental pollution through CO, emission. This study analyses the ATP testing procedures for in-service equipment, investigates the impact on the environmental and gives some proposals for improvement. Copyright (C) 2004 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.