Italy: 1 scheme to know about before you drive in.
Castenaso has one driving restriction on our books: the Limitazioni alla circolazione veicolare nei centri abitati di Castenaso… (low emission zone). What is a low emission zone?
Sources last read on 2026-09-29, from the authorities' own pages. The next scheduled check is 2026-12-29.
Castenaso closes two separate built-up areas to older vehicles for the winter half of the year, from 1 October 2026 to 31 March 2027.
Monday to Friday, 08:30 to 18:30, the ban catches petrol cars up to and including Euro 2, LPG/petrol and methane/petrol up to and including Euro 2, diesel cars up to and including Euro 4, LPG/diesel and methane/diesel up to and including Euro 4, and mopeds and motorcycles up to and including Euro 2. Nothing is on sale: there is no day ticket, no charge and no payable derogation.
The fine is set by national law and the order states it, a range of €168 to €679, with fifteen to thirty days' licence suspension for a repeat offence within two years. 🔑 Three things here have no counterpart in the neighbouring records for the same season and the same regional plan.
The first is that the scheme covers two named places rather than one: every operative point bans the vehicles "su tutta l'area del centro abitato di Castenaso e del centro abitato della frazione di Villanova di Castenaso", and the two sit about three kilometres apart.
The second is the size of the hole cut in them — the order excludes forty-three bulleted itineraries from the ban, forty-six streets and one roundabout, with the stretches spelled out by house number and junction, so a banned vehicle can legally reach car parks, the cemetery, the sports grounds and the Carabinieri barracks inside the restricted areas.
Fidenza's order for the same season excludes two roads; this one excludes a road network. The third is the calendar: the order names twenty-three ecological Sundays as dates, and they are not all the Sundays of the season. 🚨 And the vehicle list is not one list but three.
On a weekday six fuel lines are caught and diesel stops at Euro 4. On an ecological Sunday five lines are caught, diesel reaches Euro 5 — and the LPG/diesel and methane/diesel line, which is banned on weekdays, is not on the Sunday list at all. During the regional emergency measures seven lines are caught and dual-fuel diesel Euro 5 joins them.
Electric and hybrid vehicles, cars carrying at least three people, and vehicles registered for specific transport or special uses are outside the ban altogether. ⚠️ Move-In, the regional telematics scheme, is narrower here than in any neighbouring record: the order excludes enrolled vehicles from point 1 only — "Solo relativamente alle limitazioni strutturali di cui al punto 1" — so a Move-In vehicle is still banned on the twenty-three ecological Sundays and during the emergency measures.