No longer should only emergency vehicles and a few others benefit from exemptions. The city of Rouen in France now also wants to exempt people with chronic and long-term illnesses from the sticker obligation and guarantee them unrestricted access to the environmental zone of the Rouen metropolitan area.
As environmental zones are becoming more and more important across Europe and at the same time their restrictive effects on citizens' mobility behaviour are increasingly criticised, the French city of Rouen announces new exemptions for its environmental zone. Since 2021, the permanent environmental zone - in addition to the weather-related driving ban that came into force in 2022 - has been active in the northern French city and currently prohibits the traffic of all vehicles with sticker class 4, 5 and without a sticker. The only exceptions are for police, public transport and other emergency vehicles. On the recommendation of the city administration, this is now to change.
People with chronic and long-term illnesses are also to be exempted from the sticker requirement for entering the low emission zone - announced Mayor Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol (PS) at yesterday's press conference. He said that the city has a responsibility to ensure that citizens with increased medical needs can always and everywhere have access to clinics and other health facilities. Especially now that Rouen - given the observed improvement in air quality - can afford to allow some additional vehicles to return to the Low Emission Zone.
Air levels in the metropolis' low emission zone would already fall below the levels set by the European Union. A positive balance, which would also allow the city to "skip the extension of the ban to sticker 3 planned for 2025 after all" - explains the city administration. In the meantime, the city can partially defuse the rule by giving people with long-term illnesses a right to exemption from the sticker requirement. This includes citizens with proven illnesses such as cancer, liver and arterial diseases, diabetes type 1 and type 2, heart failure, Alzheimer's disease or multiple sclerosis.
According to Mayor Mayer-Rossignol, the city is working on the introduction of a ZFE pass. This would enable motorists to drive in the low-emission zone area 24 days a year - and thus to get to medical facilities, for example. However, the details of the proposed pass still need to be worked out, and its feasibility will only be decided after the publication of air quality data for 2023. Irrespective of this, however, chronic patients are to be given unrestricted access to the thirteen municipalities in the metropolitan area that are part of the environmental zone. For all other groups of people, the environmental zone regulations in Rouen will apply as before.
Nor should we forget the numerous other low emission zones that are active in France - as well as in the rest of Europe. As always, all the information is available on our website and in the Green Zones app.