No, the DGT will not veto cars with a B label in the Low Emission Zones of 2023

By January 1, 2023, at the latest, all Spanish municipalities with more than 50,000 inhabitants, in addition to island territories, will have to have a Low Emission Zone (LEZ) . And for this, the DGT has designed a common indication , in the form of a vertical sign , to signal these types of areas restricted to traffic.

In the LEZs, the access of cars and vehicles will be discriminated by environmental label . Thus, in the lower area of ​​this vertical sign, which was defined in June 2021, it is indicated "except authorized vehicles", adding the pictogram of different badges.

In this example provided by the DGT, cars with label B were left out , but this does not mean that cars with this label will be banned from driving.

The municipalities will determine which vehicles they veto, as is already the case in activated LEZs

As detailed by Traffic when this sign was released, it informs of the prohibited entry to motor vehicles, except those that have the environmental badge indicated by the local entity at the bottom of the sign.

In other words, the signal published by the DGT is a mere example and it will be the city councils of these municipalities that must have an ZBE that will decide which cars discriminate . And those with label B do not necessarily have to be included.

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We will therefore have a heterogeneous map of areas restricted to traffic, something that in fact already happens with the implemented and active LEZs. In total, almost 150 municipalities must apply this measure.

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For example, the Barcelona ZBE , which includes the entire city and part of the periphery and is subject to hours and days of the week, includes in its signal that indicates the ZBE both for cars with ECO and ZERO labels and with B and C labels. among its exceptions. In other words, it only restricts access to those who do not have a badge .

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The city council had foreseen to apply the veto this 2022 to cars of label B (with the exception of the residents), but finally it will not do it . And at the moment there is no definitive date, since the calendar will be modulated "based on the results and the evolution of air quality levels", as indicated in the Metropolitan Plan for Urban Mobility (PMMU) 2019- 2024.

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On the other hand, in Madrid there are two active ZBE : the one for Special Protection of the Central District and the one for Plaza Elíptica . The first prohibits the circulation of all cars that are not ZERO or ECO and the second only to those without a label , so that both B and C can circulate.

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And the Seville LEZ also discriminates only against unlabeled vehicles , in addition to being non-permanent and subject to high pollution episodes.

Ultimately, the councils will design how they consider their ZBE and which cars and vehicles restrict traffic in them and on what terms, and may or may not apply the veto to B-label cars and vehicles .