Italy: 2 schemes to know about before you drive in.
Modena has 2 driving restrictions on our books: the Limitazioni alla circolazione dei veicoli privati nel centro abitato di… (low emission zone) and the Zona a Traffico Limitato del Centro Storico (limited traffic zone). What is a low emission zone?
Sources last read on 2026-09-22, from the authorities' own pages. The next scheduled check is 2026-12-21.
| Scheme | Kind | Fine |
|---|---|---|
| Limitazioni alla circolazione dei veicoli privati nel centro abitato di Modena ("manovra antismog" 2026/2027) | low emission zone | €168.00 |
| Zona a Traffico Limitato del Centro Storico | limited traffic zone | not in our sources |
Modena closes its built-up area to older vehicles for the winter half of the year.
From 1 October 2026 to 31 March 2027 the ban runs Monday to Friday and on every Sunday, and it 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, and mopeds and motorcycles up to and including Euro 2 — and on Sundays the diesel line moves up to include Euro 5.
A particulate filter does not help: the city states the diesel classes are banned "anche se dotati di filtro antiparticolato". Saturday is free unless the region's emergency measures are running.
The ordinary hours are 08:30 to 18:30, but they are not the hours in force at the start of this season: a monitoring station in Via Giardini has already logged the twenty-fifth daily PM10 exceedance of the calendar year, so the additional local measures are switched on and until 31 December 2026 the ban runs from 08:00 to 19:00.
This is not a charging scheme — nothing is on sale, no ticket exists and a banned car does not become admissible by paying. It is a mayoral order under article 7 of the Italian Highway Code implementing the region's air-quality plan, the PAIR 2030, and it is re-issued every year: the order in force is Prot. n.
358710 of 17 September 2026. Two things make it survivable for a visitor whose car is on the list. The perimeter roads themselves stay drivable, and the order excludes one by one the routes leading in and out of twenty-six park-and-ride car parks, so a banned vehicle can still reach a car park at the edge and continue by bus.
And a guest staying at accommodation inside the zone is exempt for the journey to and from the accommodation itself, on a booking or on a later attestation from the hotel. Electric and hybrid vehicles, cars carrying at least three people, and vehicles registered for specific transport or special uses are outside the ban altogether.
Modena's historic centre is closed to unauthorised vehicles permanently, not for part of the day. The coordinated order forbids movement, stopping and parking inside a perimeter drawn along the ring of viali, and the perimeter streets themselves stay open — they bound the zone without being inside it.
Thirteen camera gates read the plate of every vehicle going in and coming out, around the clock, and a plate that is not on the authorised list is fined. Bicycles, mopeds, motorcycles and L5e three-wheelers with two front wheels need nothing at all; nor do buses on tourist or school services setting down and picking up, taxis, hire cars with driver, emergency services and the named utility fleets.
For a visitor arriving by car there are two openings that work: a hotel, B&B, hostel or room rental inside the zone, which issues a windscreen pass and reports your plate, and a guarded paid car park inside the zone, which may be reached by the direct route only. ⚠️ A hybrid is not an electric car here.
The city's own answer page states that the order in force bars hybrid cars and that only fully electric vehicles may enter the historic centre — the opposite of Modena's other scheme, the winter antismog ban, where an electric or hybrid car is exempt outright. The two rules run over different ground in the same city, and a driver who reasons from one to the other is wrong in the direction that ends in a fine.