Milan Area C — A €5 Congestion Charge Since 2012, With Peer-Reviewed Evidence of a PM10 Drop but No Clear NOx Effect

Area C is Milan's congestion-charge zone, launched in January 2012 by the Municipality of Milan. Vehicles pay a €5 daily ticket to enter the historic centre during weekday operating hours (7:30–19:30, shorter on Thursdays); mopeds, motorcycles, electric cars, taxis and public-transport and utility vehicles are exempt, and hybrid and gas-fuelled cars were exempt only until the end of 2016.
City-reported results summarised by C40 include a 49% fall in polluting vehicles entering (about 2,400 fewer a day), clean vehicles rising from 9.6% to 16.6% of traffic, total PM10 down 18% and exhaust PM10 down 10%, and road casualties down 24% between 2011 and 2012 versus 11% city-wide. These are municipal figures and early-period comparisons.
Independent evidence is more cautious. A 2026 Environmetrics study (Adam, Biancalani, Metulini) applying matrix completion to monthly Lombardy data for 2008–2019 finds a statistically significant PM10 reduction inside Area C, but no consistent effect on nitrogen oxides, suggesting other measures are needed for gaseous pollutants.
Transferability is high for dense historic centres with good public transport; the evidence base is strongest for particulates and weaker for NOx and for distributional effects.

Read the full analysis: https://aisberg.unibg.it/handle/10446/331169