Keeping innovation within democracy: the case of Milan's Area C

Can an innovation in public sector be also respectful of the will of the citizens? The awards winning innovation (COTEC price 2014 ; Transport achievement award 2014 ) proposed in 2012 by the Municipality of Milan seems to... [ view full abstract ]

Can an innovation in public sector be also respectful of the will of the citizens? The awards winning innovation (COTEC price 2014 ; Transport achievement award 2014 ) proposed in 2012 by the Municipality of Milan seems to have such feature. The 2008 Ecopass scheme was upgraded after 2012 public referendum and nowadays Milan is the only city in Europe where both a congestion and a pollution charges apply.
Being Milan highly polluted because of traffic, a regulatory scheme was necessary. Concern was high about the quantity of pollution in the air, especially PM10. The first version of the Ecopass was impeding to old and more polluting vehicles to access the very centre of Milan. But after a few years, the effectiveness of such regulatory scheme was challenged. So the scheme was updated to a congestion charge after that 79,1% of the citizens approved it with a referendum. Surprisingly the majority of citizens has been positive, while in several other European city it could not be possible to reach the same result. Now the Area C is permanent, so to enter Area C costs 5 euro for normal cars while greener vehicles can enter for free. In the future all vehicles will pay different tariffs according with their emissions. Revenues from tariffs have been invested in public transport to enhance mobility. To overcome the limits of the previous system, a sophisticated measurement technology is now in place. Black Carbon can more effectively measure the pollution produced and an open data website allows to access all available information . This paper studies the case of Area C, showing the main features of this innovation in public transport.