Driving in Kozani: Pezodromiseis Plateias Lassani

Kozani, Greece · Limited traffic zone

Official name Έγκριση της υπ’ αρ. 6/2020 απόφασης της Επιτροπής Ποιότητας Ζωής του Δήμου Κοζάνης αναφορικά με την λήψη μόνιμων μέτρων ρύθμισης της κυκλοφορίας στα πλαίσια της μελέτης «Ανάπλαση πλατείας Λασσάνη και πέριξ οδών» (αποφ. οικ. 25969, ΦΕΚ Β' 1168/26.03.2021)

In force in Kozani right nowTuesday, 13 October 2026 at 12:05 · Europe/Athens

  • In force Every vehicle on the section of Ermou between Kontorousi and Takiatzidon, and on Ierolochiton; and, separately, every vehicle driving through Ierolochiton towards Olympou other than an emergency vehicle. Vehicles going in and out of parking on properties fronting a pedestrian street are admitted by article 2 §56 of the Greek Highway Code at every hour, and that exemption cannot be expressed as a timetable; it is described in `how_to_comply`.

The empty window list is the act's own shape and not a missing fact. This is a permanent redesignation of two streets — «μόνιμα μέτρα ρύθμισης της κυκλοφορίας» — with no season, no weekday and no hour anywhere in it, so a verdict of "in force" is correct at every hour of every day. 🚫 It must not be read as an hour this project failed to find: nothing in the act names an hour that the gazette then withholds.

⚠️ One hour could still exist somewhere this project has not read. The act makes the operation of the new pedestrian streets subject to the municipality's standing regulation on public spaces, council decision 141/2016, which it does not reproduce and which the Δήμος Κοζάνης does not publish anywhere reachable — both of its domains answered an Apache default page on 2026-09-23. If that regulation admits supply traffic at named hours, this timetable over-warns for those hours, which is the safe direction.

Emergency vehicles are excepted from the Ierolochiton through-traffic ban by name and at every hour, so for them this schedule over-warns in every window. The same is true of vehicles reaching parking on a property fronting either pedestrian street, which the Highway Code admits by definition.

🚨 This timetable cannot tell you whether the arrangement has commenced. The act carries no commencement date, it belongs to a square rebuilding whose works were separately gazetted in June 2023 for a twenty-four month period, and its conditions leave the final placement of the signs to the municipality's supervising service. A verdict of "in force" here means "in force as the gazette has it", not "measured on the street".

This covers two streets at Plateia Lassani and nothing else in Kozani. The one-way changes, the widths, the traffic-calmed designations and the parking bans in the same act are not prohibitions on entering and are deliberately not encoded; the separate 2026 scheme at block Ο.Τ. 597 is a different decision about a different square and is not on this page.

Public holidays are not encoded, because the act does not mention them. It exempts no day and no date.

Operating times only, read from the source below. It does not check your vehicle.

What applies

Kozani is the capital of Greek West Macedonia and the town most drivers cross rather than aim for — it sits where the Egnatia Odos motorway meets the road down to Larisa and the road up to Kastoria, and its centre is Plateia Lassani.

In March 2021 the Αποκεντρωμένη Διοίκηση Ηπείρου - Δυτικής Μακεδονίας gazetted the permanent traffic scheme that came with the square's rebuilding, and two of its measures are bans rather than street furniture. 🔑 The section of Ermou along the western side of the square, between Kontorousi and Takiatzidon, is a pedestrian street.

And Ierolochiton is a pedestrian street too, with a second and separate restriction on top of it: through traffic towards Olympou is banned, Polyzouli is the single entry and exit point, and the only vehicles excepted are emergency vehicles — «εκτός των οχημάτων έκτακτου ανάγκης». ⚠️ Everything else the act does is a change to how the surrounding streets work rather than a prohibition on entering them, and a driver should not read the list as a closed centre.

Four streets around the square are redesignated «οδός ήπιας κυκλοφορίας», a traffic-calmed road, and stay open: the northern section of Ermou between Kontorousi and E. Venizelou, the section of Olympou along the eastern side between Archelaou and Athinas, Athinas, and Kontorousi between Lioufi and Ermou. Athinas also becomes one-way, from Polyzouli towards Lioufi.

The act bans parking on most of the perimeter and moves the town bus stop off the pedestrianised part of Ermou to Eptanisou, on the southern side of the square. 🔑 There is no season, no clock, no charge and no permit anywhere in this scheme.

It is a permanent change to what two streets are, not a timed closure, and the act creates nothing a visitor could buy or apply for. ⚠️ The one thing the gazette does not give is the date it started.

The measures were approved in 2021 as part of the «Ανάπλαση πλατείας Λασσάνη και πέριξ οδών» project; the works themselves were gazetted separately in June 2023 with a twenty-four month execution window, and no act in this series says on what day the permanent arrangement replaced the works arrangement. 🔑 Kozani has a second permanent scheme of the same shape, at a different square, gazetted on 11 June 2026 for the block Ο.Τ.

597: it pedestrianises a section of Sperchiou and a section of Acheloou and makes Modi, Alfeiou and Acheloou one-way. It is a separate decision about a separate place and no rule on this page comes from it; it is named here so that this page is not read as the whole of Kozani.

Source: Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο, read 2026-09-23
Full citation

Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο (National Printing House) — Εφημερίδα της Κυβερνήσεως, ΦΕΚ Β' 1168/26.03.2021, Αριθμ. οικ. 25969 of the Συντονιστής Αποκεντρωμένης Διοίκησης Ηπείρου - Δυτικής Μακεδονίας, approving decision 6/2020 of the Επιτροπή Ποιότητας Ζωής of the Δήμος Κοζάνης under article 52 §1 of the Highway Code

Daily charge

Nothing is charged and there is nothing to buy.

The act is a permanent redesignation of streets under article 52 §1 of the Highway Code; it creates no permit, no resident card, no day ticket and no tariff, and no sum of money appears anywhere in its operative text. ⚠️ One document is deferred to rather than reproduced, and it is the honest limit on this field: the act says that for the streets converted into pedestrian streets «η λειτουργία τους θα διέπεται από τα αναφερόμενα στον Β11) σχετικό κανονισμό λειτουργίας κοινόχρηστων χώ- ρων του Δήμου Κοζάνης» — their operation is governed by the municipality's standing regulation on public spaces, which its preamble identifies as council decision 141/2016.

That regulation is not in the gazette, and the Δήμος Κοζάνης web presence could not be reached in this cycle: both kozanh.gr and cityofkozani.gov.gr answer an Apache default page over http and fail TLS, measured on 2026-09-23. So this is an unread document rather than a document known to contain no charge, and this record says so instead of claiming the scheme is free of one.

When it operates

There are no hours, and that is the rule rather than a gap in it. The act sets out «μόνιμα μέτρα ρύθμισης της κυκλοφορίας» — permanent traffic measures — and the two prohibitions it creates carry no season, no weekday and no clock.

The section of Ermou between Kontorousi and Takiatzidon becomes a pedestrian street outright; Ierolochiton becomes a pedestrian street and is closed to through traffic towards Olympou outright. A driver arriving at 03:00 in February meets the same rule as one arriving at 18:00 in August. 🔑 What replaces a timetable here is the Highway Code's definition of what a pedestrian street is.

Article 2 §56 of ν. 5209/2025 defines a «πεζόδρομος» as a road «η οποία χρησιμοποιείται αποκλειστικά από τους πεζούς και για είσοδο - έξοδο οχημάτων προς και από χώρους στάθμευσης παρόδιων ιδιοκτησιών» — used exclusively by pedestrians and for vehicles going in and out of parking on properties fronting it.

That exemption is a matter of who you are and where you are going, not of the hour, which is why this record's timetable has no windows at all. ⚠️ And one deferral that could hide an hour.

The act says the operation of the new pedestrian streets is governed by the municipality's standing public-spaces regulation, council decision 141/2016, which it never reproduces; article 55 of the Highway Code expects exactly such a «κανονισμός λειτουργίας του πεζόδρομου» to sit inside the study.

If that regulation admits supply traffic between named hours — as the comparable regulations in Mytilene and elsewhere in this corpus do — then this page over-warns during those hours. That is the safe direction, and it is stated rather than assumed away. ⚠️ Finally, the act gives no date on which any of it began.

It is the permanent arrangement for a square that was still being rebuilt in 2023: ΦΕΚ Β' 3882/16.06.2023 approved temporary measures for the duration of the works «για χρονικό διάστημα είκοσι τεσσάρων (24) μηνών», a twenty-four month window from mid-2023, and nothing in either act names the day the permanent scheme took over. `effective_from` is null for that reason.

Source: Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο, read 2026-09-23
Full citation

Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο — Εφημερίδα της Κυβερνήσεως, ΦΕΚ Β' 1168/26.03.2021, Αριθμ. οικ. 25969, clause Α) for the two prohibitions and the fourth condition of the preamble for the deferral to the municipal public-spaces regulation; read together with ΦΕΚ Β' 3882/16.06.2023, Αριθμ. οικ. 27527, for the twenty-four month works window, and with ν. 5209/2025 article 2 §56 and article 55 for what a pedestrian street is and for where its operating regulation lives

Area covered

Two streets on the western and northern flanks of Plateia Lassani, Kozani's central square, and the act names them one at a time rather than drawing a zone. 🔑 The pedestrianisations are «Πεζοδρόμηση του τμήματος της οδού Ερμού κατά μήκος της δυτικής πλευράς της πλατείας Λασσάνη, με-ταξύ των οδών Κοντορούση και Τακιατζήδων» — the section of Ermou along the western side of the square, between Kontorousi and Takiatzidon — and «Πεζοδρόμηση της οδού Ιερολοχιτών», Ierolochiton, taken as a whole.

On Ierolochiton a second restriction sits on top: through movement towards Olympou is banned and Polyzouli is named as the single entry and exit point. ⚠️ The rest of the act describes the ring around the square, and none of it closes a street. The northern section of Ermou between Kontorousi and E.

Venizelou is narrowed to 3.25 m and redesignated «οδός ήπιας κυκλοφορίας», a traffic-calmed road; the section of Olympou along the eastern side between Archelaou and Athinas is narrowed to 3.10 m with an exclusive pedestrian strip and no raised kerb, and likewise redesignated; Kontorousi along the northern side between Lioufi and Ermou is narrowed to 3.50 m and redesignated; Athinas is made one-way from Polyzouli towards Lioufi and redesignated.

Eptanisou, Archelaou and the stretch of Ermou between Takiatzidon and Eptanisou are narrowed but keep their character. Parking is banned on the left of Archelaou, the right of Polyzouli, and on Athinas, Kontorousi, Olympou along the eastern side, both the northern section of Ermou and the section between Takiatzidon and Navarinou, Eptanisou, and the public space at the Palama-Navarinou junction.

The town bus stop that used to stand on the western side of the square «επί της οδού Ερμού», on the pedestrianised part, moves to Eptanisou on the southern side. 🚨 One discrepancy in the publisher's own two acts is printed here rather than reconciled.

The 2021 act bounds the Ermou pedestrianisation at Kontorousi and Takiatzidon; the 2023 works act, from the same authority about the same project, repeatedly describes the closed stretch as «Οδός Ερμού (μεταξύ των οδών Κοντορούση και Τσιμηνάκη)» and calls the closure there a «Διατήρηση υφιστάμενης απαγόρευσης κυκλοφορίας οχημάτων», the maintenance of an existing vehicle ban.

Takiatzidon and Tsiminaki are two different street names for the eastern end of the same short block and this record does not decide which one the sign stands at. 🚫 There is no geometry. The act's drawings are annexed to it and the gazette carries them as pictures: pages 14165 to 14172 of ΦΕΚ Β' 1168/2021 yield no extractable characters at all, while the operative text on pages 14161 to 14164 reads cleanly.

Source: Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο, read 2026-09-23
Full citation

Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο — Εφημερίδα της Κυβερνήσεως, ΦΕΚ Β' 1168/26.03.2021, Αριθμ. οικ. 25969, clauses Α), Β) and Γ) and the paragraph on the relocated bus stop; read together with ΦΕΚ Β' 3882/16.06.2023, Αριθμ. οικ. 27527, for the works-period description of the same stretch of Ermou

Why there is no map here
The scheme was drawn before it was gazetted and the drawing is a picture. The act governs «σύμφωνα και με τα συνημμένα θεω-ρημένα σχέδια της διαμόρφωσης και της σήμανσης της μελέτης» — the annexed, stamped layout and signing drawings — and ΦΕΚ Β' 1168/2021 carries them as image pages: scripts/read-source.mjs extracts 16 828 characters from the 5.2 MB issue, all of it from pages 14161 to 14164, while pages 14165 to 14172 produce no characters at all. 🔑 Unlike the Aegean acts in this corpus, this one publishes no coordinates of any kind: there is no ΕΓΣΑ 87 table, no sign position and no bounding point, only street names and the sides of the square they run along. Our boundary contract is a MultiPolygon, and turning «the section of Ermou along the western side of the square, between Kontorousi and Takiatzidon» into one would mean drawing a line the municipality never drew. ⚠️ It does not heal by reading the gazette in a better viewer, and this cycle measured that rather than assuming it: the operative text reads cleanly out of the same file, so the missing pages are missing because they are drawings, not because the extraction failed. ✅ It heals if the Δήμος Κοζάνης publishes the technical service's study as geometry. ⚠️ That question could not even be asked in this cycle: both municipal domains answered an Apache default page over http and failed TLS on 2026-09-23 — kozanh.gr times out on https and www.kozanh.gr serves «Apache2 Ubuntu Default Page» with a robots.txt of HTTP 404, and cityofkozani.gov.gr behaves identically. Διαύγεια, where council decision 6/2020 and the Επιτροπή Ποιότητας Ζωής file sit, is closed by its own robots.txt and we respect it.

The authority's own map: Αποκεντρωμένη Διοίκηση Ηπείρου - Δυτικής Μακεδονίας / Δήμος Κοζάνης, Διεύθυνση…

Petrol standard

This scheme sets no emission threshold, and the absence is structural rather than unrecorded. It asks two questions about a vehicle — is it on one of the two named streets, and if it is on Ierolochiton is it an emergency vehicle passing through — and it asks nothing at all about what leaves the exhaust. A Euro 6 hire car is barred from the pedestrianised stretch of Ermou exactly as a Euro 1 one is.

Diesel standard

The same as for petrol, and for the same structural reason: the act contains no emission criterion of any kind, and nothing in it turns on fuel, age or engine.

Penalty if you do not comply
€350.00 The act prints no figure at all, and it prints no sign code either; every number here is read from the statute, and the statute was read for this cycle on 2026-09-23 rather than inherited. Driving a vehicle on a pedestrian street is prohibited by article 20 §4 of ν. 5209/2025, the Greek Highway Code in force since 13 September 2025, which forbids a driver to circulate «σε πλατείες, πεζόδρομους, πεζοδρόμια, νησίδες ασφαλείας» except in cases of absolute necessity or where special regulations permit it. Article 20 §8 β) classifies a breach of §4 «στην κατηγορία Ε3-Β και στην κατηγορία Σ». Article 108 §5 γ) γα) prices a category Ε3 breach at «διοικητικό πρόστιμο τριακοσίων πενήντα (350) ευρώ»; §5 γ) γβ) adds withdrawal of the driving licence and of the vehicle's registration documents for thirty (30) days; §5 δ) adds a further forty (40) days' withdrawal of the licence for the category Σ classification. ⚠️ For a visitor in a hire car, the measure against the vehicle's registration documents is a matter between the renter and the rental company that the Code does not address. 🚨 The honest limit here is different from the one at Mytilene, and it runs the other way. At Mytilene the acts printed a sign code that pointed at a smaller penalty than the word they used; this act prints no sign code anywhere. Its signage clause orders «κατακόρυφες πινακίδες αναγγελίας κινδύνου, ρυθ-μιστικές, πληροφοριακές και πρόσθετες πινακίδες» as categories, expressly excludes the speed-limit sign as a matter for a separate council decision under article 20, and leaves the exact placement to a later application study by the municipality's supervising service under article 10 §2. So the classification above rests entirely on the word «πεζοδρόμηση» and on what article 2 §56 says a pedestrian street is — not on a plate this project has read. 🔑 And the second prohibition has no price on this page at all. The ban on through movement along Ierolochiton towards Olympou is a restriction of a different kind from a pedestrianisation, its penalty under the Code would follow from whichever regulatory sign was erected to carry it, and the act never says which one. This record does not guess at it: what it can state is that Ierolochiton is also a pedestrian street, so the €350 route reaches a vehicle that is on it whether or not it was passing through.Source: Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο, read 2026-09-23
Full citation

Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο — Εφημερίδα της Κυβερνήσεως, ΦΕΚ Α' 100/13.06.2025: ν. 5209/2025, «Κώδικας Οδικής Κυκλοφορίας». Article 2 §56 for the definition of a pedestrian street; article 20 §4 and §8 β) for driving on one and for the category it falls in; article 108 §5 γ) and δ) for the tariff and the licence measures; article 55 for the power under which permanent pedestrian streets and traffic-calmed areas are designated and for the operating regulation that belongs with them

How to comply
  • Do not drive into the section of Ermou that runs along the western side of Plateia Lassani, between Kontorousi and Takiatzidon. It is a pedestrian street permanently — there is no hour at which it opens and no season in which the rule lapses.
  • Do not use Ierolochiton as a way through. It is a pedestrian street as well, and on top of that the act bans through movement towards Olympou and names Polyzouli as the single point of entry and exit. The only vehicles excepted from the through-traffic ban are emergency vehicles.
  • 🔑 The rest of the square is open, and the signs will look busier than the rules are. Four streets around Plateia Lassani — the northern part of Ermou, the eastern section of Olympou, Athinas and Kontorousi — were redesignated «οδός ήπιας κυκλοφορίας», traffic-calmed roads. That is a design status, not a ban: you may drive them, slowly, and pedestrians are sharing the carriageway on the Olympou stretch by design, because it was built with a pedestrian strip instead of a raised kerb.
  • Note the one-way you will meet on the way in: Athinas runs from Polyzouli towards Lioufi and not the other way.
  • Do not plan to park on the perimeter. The act bans parking on the left of Archelaou, the right of Polyzouli, on Athinas, on Kontorousi, on the eastern side of Olympou, on the northern section of Ermou, on Ermou between Takiatzidon and Navarinou, on Eptanisou and on the public space at the Palama-Navarinou junction. What it does create is a row of spaces on the right of Archelaou and the left of Polyzouli, three taxi bays on Archelaou and two disabled bays on the northern part of Ermou.
  • If you are catching the town bus, it no longer stops on the square's western side: the act moves the stop off the pedestrianised part of Ermou to Eptanisou, on the southern side.
  • You are admitted onto a pedestrian street only if you are reaching parking on a property that fronts it. Article 2 §56 of the Greek Highway Code defines a pedestrian street as one used exclusively by pedestrians and for vehicles going in and out of parking on adjoining properties, so if your accommodation is on that stretch of Ermou or on Ierolochiton, that is the exemption you are relying on — and it is about the property, not about the hour.
  • ⚠️ The cost of getting it wrong is €350 plus licence measures. The Highway Code reaches driving on a pedestrian street at €350, thirty days' withdrawal of the driving licence and of the vehicle's registration documents, and a further forty days' withdrawal of the licence for the antisocial-conduct classification. The act itself prints no figure and no sign code, so `penalty` sets out exactly what that reading rests on.
  • ⚠️ Read the street rather than this page for the boundary of the closure. The two acts in this project name the eastern end of the Ermou closure differently — Takiatzidon in 2021, Tsiminaki in 2023 — and neither the gazette nor anything the municipality publishes settles which name is on the sign.
  • There is nothing to buy and nowhere to buy it. No permit, no resident card, no day pass and no charge appears anywhere in the act — but it does defer the operation of the new pedestrian streets to a standing municipal regulation on public spaces, council decision 141/2016, which is not published in the gazette and which the municipality's own website did not serve when this record was written. Treat that document as unread rather than as empty.
  • 🔑 This page is about Plateia Lassani only. Kozani gazetted a second, separate permanent scheme on 11 June 2026 for the square in block Ο.Τ. 597, pedestrianising a section of Sperchiou and a section of Acheloou and making Modi and Alfeiou one-way. If you are driving in that neighbourhood — Modi, Alfeiou, Acheloou, Sperchiou, Askiou, Nestou — nothing on this page describes it.
Source: Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο, read 2026-09-23
Full citation

Εθνικό Τυπογραφείο — Εφημερίδα της Κυβερνήσεως, ΦΕΚ Β' 1168/26.03.2021, Αριθμ. οικ. 25969, clauses Α) to Δ) and the fourth condition of the preamble, with the sanctions read from ν. 5209/2025 (ΦΕΚ Α' 100/13.06.2025) and the second Kozani scheme from ΦΕΚ Β' 3318/11.06.2026, Αριθμ. οικ. 19694ΕΜΚ

Sources

Next scheduled re-check: 2026-12-22.

Before you set off

Also in Kozani

A city can run more than one scheme, and they do not always answer the same question.

Other cities in Greece

And 35 more in Greece