Florence to introduce vehicle access regulation to reduce air pollution

The Italian city of Florence has agreed a new plan that aims to reduce air pollution and improve people’s quality of life. The city will implement a 'Green Shield', which is a low emission zone.

The municipality has recently approved the project, the main objective of which is the reduction of polluting emissions within the city by limiting vehicle access in the urban area to the most polluting vehicles. The zone will be enforced by a network of 81 automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras positioned along the main entry axes of the city. The zone will have a perimeter of about 50 kilometres and will cover about 38 square kilometres, which is equal to 66% of the city and 37% of the wider municipal area.

The perimeter of the zone was designed to avoid adversely affecting access to some strategic poles, such as the Careggi hospital, the airport, large production areas and a few large shopping centres. It also allows access to tram terminals and Park and Ride infrastructure.

The implementation of the requires an investment of €4.4 million, of which €1.5 million comes from European funds, €2 million from state funds, and €900,000 from the municipality. The 'Green Shield' is scheduled to start operation by the end of 2022.

"With this project, we are talking about a reduction of more than 5 thousand tons of carbon dioxide and 3.3 tons of Pm10 only in the Florence urban area and its first belt. Numbers that double if we look at the entire province. A very steady reduction that will make Florence one of the least polluted cities in Italy", the mayor stated.

According to the simulations carried out, the 'Green Shield', together with other interventions for sustainable mobility, will result in a reduction of up to 18% of journeys with private vehicles in the urban area (capital and municipalities of the first belt) and up to 13% on the road network within the metropolitan city. Even more significant was the reduction in travel times with drops of 22% in the urban area and 18% in the metropolitan city. While car use reduces, the simulations show an increase in the use of public transport, including trains, trams and buses (up 151,000, 124,000 and 25,000 passengers per day respectively).

Original article published by repubblica.it on 2 December 2020.