The European Union and Commission are active in three areas relevant to Urban Access Regulations, in Air Quality, Transport and Climate Change.

Air Quality

The EU has two main roles with respect to air quality. Firstly to set air quality standards, based on advice from the World Health Organisation (WHO). The second is to agree EU-wide emissions reductions that would be difficult to do at national level - such as those detailed below.

Measures implemented by the European Union (EU) include:

  - Specific health-based air quality standards that are to be met, which in turn lead to action on all levels
  - Cleaner fuels for vehicles and inland shipping, which allows cleaner engines to be developed and operated
  - Standards that new vehicles need to meet, that get more strict every 4-6 years, the "Euro standards"
  - Regulations for large industrial plants, particularly power stations
  - Limits for the total amount of emissions that each country is allowed to emit, known as the National Emissions Ceilings Directive (NECD)ⁱ.

The EU and LEZs
The European Commission sees LEZs as a useful tool to improve air quality. Under certain circumstances the European Commission is prepared to give countries an extension to the date by which they are to meet the air quality targets, but only if they are undertaking all the action that they reasonably could – including implementing LEZs.
The cities and ministries within this Network also feel it is the role of the EU to open up vehicle registrations to other member states to make enforcement of foreign vehicles easier and more formal through EU processes.

The DG Environment of the European Commission has also had a draft voluntary guidance on LEZs, and a full report that accompanies the guidance. It is a public document, but it has as yet no official status, other than a consultants report. If the EU is to take this document forward as an official EU document, it would first go through informal consultation. The CLARS Network would be the one of the consultation methods. If you are a European public authority, please register http://www.urbanaccessregulations.eu/public-authorities with us to ensure that you are involved in this informal consultation if it happens.

Transport

The issues and challenges connected to this require action at European or even international level; no national government can address them successfully alone.

The aim of the Commission is to promote a mobility that is efficient, safe, secure and environmentally friendly and to create the conditions for a competitive industry generating growth and jobs.

The European Commission’s Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport works on issues such as clean fuels and sustainable mobility, including funding this website. In 2015-7 the DG MOVE is working on 6 non-binding guidance documents for Urban Vehicle Access Regulations, which will be available from this page when they are published.

The key EU transport goals from the latest Transport White paper is to:

 - to halve the use of ‘conventionally fuelled’ cars in urban transport by 2030;
 - phase ‘conventionally fuelled’ cars out of cities by 2050;
 - achieve CO₂-free city logistics in major urban centres by 2030.

Urban Access Regulations play a key role in providing this.

DG MOVE has also published Non-Binding Guidelines on Urban Vehicle Access Regulations. 

Climate Change

Transport produces carbon dioxide, so reducing transport emissions through access regulations for example urban road charging is relevant to climate change. See the European Commissions Climate Change page for more details on their climate change policies.

• 3.5T, 5T, 7.5T … = vehicles with a gross 3.5 tonne vehicles
• ARS = (urban) access regulation scheme
• CS = (urban) Charging Schemes
• Diesel particulate filter = equipment fitted to a vehicle to reduce that reduces particulate, or soot, emissions from the vehicle. These are fitted to newer vehicles when they leave the factory, and can be retrofitted (fitted to an existing vehicle). For more information see Diesel particulate filter & SCR
• DPF = Diesel particulate filter equipment fitted to a vehicle used to reduce particulate, or soot, emissions from the vehicle. These are fitted to newer vehicles when they leave the factory, and can be retrofitted (fitted to an existing vehicle). For more information see Diesel particulate filter & SCR
• Euro standards = European Vehicle Emissions Standards. These currently go from Euro 1 to Euro 6. We always use numbers to indicate Euro standard, sometimes Roman Numerals are used for heavy duty vehicles Euro standards (so Euro I to VI)
• Euro 6d temp = This is an advanced Euro 6 standard, and one that significantly improves the emissions from Euro 6.
• FAQ = frequently asked questions.
• GVW = gross vehicle weight
• HDV = heavy duty vehicle
• HGV = heavy goods vehicle
• Key-ARS = word we use to indicate significant ARS, for which we have full detail on full pages
• LDV = light duty vehicle
• LEZ = Low Emission Zone
• LGV = light goods vehicle
• NOx = nitrous oxides, both nitrogen monoxide (NO) and nitrogen dioxide (NO₂). Emissions from vehicles are often as mainly NO, but also NO₂. NO₂ is of concern due to its impact on health. For more information see here
• Particulate filter = diesel particulate filter, equipment fitted to a vehicle used to reduce particulate, or soot, emissions from the vehicle. These are fitted to newer vehicles when they leave the factory, and can be retrofitted (fitted to an existing vehicle). For more information see Diesel particulate filter & SCR
• PM = particulate matter - for more information see here
• Retrofitted = fitting (exhaust reducing) equipment to an existing vehicle (as opposed to fitting it in the factory)
• SCR = Selective Catalytic Reduction, equipment fitted to a vehicle used to reduce emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx)
• ULEZ = Ultra Low Emission Zone, planned in London
• ZTL = Zona a Traffico Limitato the general name for road restriction, also used for LEZs.

Did you know that you can’t drive into many European cities? Including many typical holiday cities.

Want to avoid a traffic fine on holiday?

Then read further. This is the EU Urban Vehicle Access Regulation Portal website. This site gives all the information you need about urban access regulations in Europe.

 

   

This website can be used in a number of ways.

• Search for the city in our City Search on our homepage, or at the top of many pages. 
• Find the city or country you are interested on our map (how to use the map)
• If you are planning a trip through Europe, visiting different cities, use our Route Planner.
• By Country through our country menus.
• Click directly on the articles featured on the homepage.
• Or finally with our search, which you find at the top right of the page.

We have information classified into four main kinds of scheme.

The different schemes in the cities are shown with the relevant colour menu, Low Emission Zones, Urban Road Toll Scheme, other Access Regulation, or Emergency Pollution Schemes. 

Low Emission Zones have just the city name with no further text. Other access regulation schemes have a dash ( - ) after the city name and a further description of the scheme.

For further explanations of the different regulation types schemes we include, see our overview pages.

Background information on schemes can be found through the different scheme menu items, Low Emission Zones, Urban Road Charging Schemes or Urban Access Regulation Schemes, including impacts of schemes.

Translation: Use the pull-down list with flags to change the language. Please note, this is automatic translation so the wording in languages other than English may not be perfect, but the meaning should be understandable. We use automatic translation, otherwise we simply could not keep the site up to date in all EU languages.

Public authorities can register for our free European Union public authority Platform to help support their work on urban access regulations. We also have a CLARS Membership Plus offering public authorities additional services, and which helps fund the site. 

We keep this website, up to date. We constantly monitor the situation, and add information when we identify it. 

Using the map

The map can be zoomed in and out, locations can be searched with the map search box. Double clicking on the mapped dots brings you directly to the full city information page. Popups with the main information for each scheme can be shown, or hidden. If you hover over the city dot, the popup displays. If you click on the city dot, then you can scroll through the popup. Where there is more than one scheme in the city, there is an arrow ►, where you can click through the popups for the different schemes in that city.

The logos represent the different schemes, which can be turned on or off the map. The colours of the dots on the map correspond to the colours used for the different schemes: Low Emission Zones, Urban Charging Schemes, Major Access Regulations, and Emergency Pollution Schemes.