The enforcement of Florence’s new Green Shield (Scudo Verde in Italian) traffic regulation system has been postponed once again. Originally planned for April 1 and later delayed to June 1, the issuance of fines will now begin only in early July, city officials have announced.
As we previously reported in this article, the Green Shield was expected to enter full enforcement mode starting June 1, following a two-month grace period. However, the municipality now says further technical checks are necessary to ensure proper functioning of the system and avoid erroneous penalties.
One of the key problems involves discrepancies between the city’s vehicle database and national records from the Public Vehicle Registry (PRA), which could result in fines being issued to vehicles that are in fact compliant with the rules.
Meanwhile, some residents have reported an unexpected side effect: popular navigation systems like Google Maps and other GPS apps are erroneously labeling the Green Shield area as fully restricted to all vehicles—similar to the ZTL (Limited Traffic Zone) in the city center. This has caused unnecessary detours and confusion for many drivers, even in areas where transit is still allowed for eligible vehicles.
Adding to the concerns, local media and civic monitoring groups report that tens of thousands of Florentine vehicle owners have yet to register their cars with the SAS (Servizi alla Strada) platform. While these vehicles may meet the environmental criteria, lack of registration means they risk being fined once the system goes live. Based on current estimates, around 50,000 vehicles remain unregistered out of approximately 200,000 in the city—despite a significant push in recent weeks, which saw 30,000 new entries added in just one month.
The decision to delay has sparked political debate. Some council members have criticized the repeated postponements as signs of poor planning, while others argue that extending the grace period is necessary to protect citizens from unjust penalties caused by technical and bureaucratic issues.
With July now set as the new enforcement deadline, the city is under pressure to resolve the remaining issues and launch a stronger public information campaign to avoid further confusion.
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