Umwelt Zones Reminder

[Don Madge]

From 1 January 2008 a total of 33 German cities will require all motorists to purchase a "Pollution Badge" in the form of a windscreen sticker in order to enter city centre ‘Umwelt Zones’ (green zones).

The participating cities are: Augsburg, Berlin, Braunschweig, Köln (Cologne), Darmstadt, Dresden, Düsseldorf, Essen, Frankfurt am Main, Hannover, Heidelberg, Islfeld, Karlsruhe, Kassel, Leipzig, Leonburg, Ludwigsburg, Madgeburg, Mannheim, Mühlacker, München (Munich), Neu-Ulm, Nürnberg (Nuremberg), Pforzheim, Pleidelsheim, Regensburg, Reutlingen, Ruhr Area, Schwäbish-Gmund, Stuttgart, Tübingen and Ulm.

You must present your vehicle registration document at Pollution Badge (Umwelt Plakette) sales outlets, including vehicle repair centres, car dealers, MOT (Tüv) stations and vehicle licensing offices, and you will be issued with a badge, coloured (Red/Yellow/Green) according to your vehicle’s Euro emission rating.

The cost of the badge is understood to be between €5 and €10 and, once issued, covers you throughout Germany for the life of your vehicle. Failure to display a badge could incur a fine of €40. Enforcement will be managed by the police, local authorities and traffic wardens.

This website gives a lot of information (in German): http://www.umwelt-plakette.de
Also http://www.umwelt-plakette.de/umwel...o Englisch.pdf?SID=q0j3lb93ftbufcg576a3aq6914

Safe travelling

Don

 

[Belgian]

Umweltzone

I'm not going to buy one
For us MH-ers it's a ripp-off.
Generally these zones are the centres of these cities. Places where I would not venture to drive in with a MH (exeption: the Ruhrgebiet is the whole cluster of cities - not the highways- But this industrial area is not my favourite landscape).
Moreover clever Jerry's print their own copies and stick them on their windshield
'Sie können dass im Ars stecken' (stick it in their...)

 

[Don Madge]

This was posted on MHF by one of the German members.

"The number of cities which have now really introduced Umwelt Zone regulations on 1st January 2008 has reduced to 3: Berlin, Cologne (Köln) and Hannover. Some more cities, all of them in the provinces Bavaria and Baden- Württemberg in the south of Germany, are still planning to introduce them during 2008.

All vehicles that want to travel inside of an Umwelt Zone need to display a sticker ("Umweltplakette") on the windscreen. This sticker is available in three colours, red, yellow and green, where red stands for worst and green for best emission values. During 2008 all Umwelt Zones will be open for all sticker colours, but vehicles with red sticker will be banned from the Umwelt Zone in Hannover from 2009 on, and in Cologne from 2010 on. Berlin will allow all stickers until end of 2009, and afterwards only green stickers. The regulations of other cities are still subject to change.

Motorways are (so far) exempted from the Umwelt Zone regulations, even if they pass through such zones.

The Umwelt Zone regulations also affect foreign vehicles!

It is possible to get Umwelt stickers at all German "TÜV" and "DEKRA" offices, which you usually find (pretty well signposted) somewhere in the industrial districts of most German towns. These are the institutions which do the regular technical checks on motor vehicles (like British MOT). With your van's VIN number these institutions should be able to find out which sticker is suitable for your vehicle, and hand it out within some minutes. If you don't find one, ask local people or at petrol stations for the nearest "TÜV". An alternative would be to contact a German representative of your MH's base vehicle manufacturer, or a local car registration office ("Kfz-Zulassungsstelle").

BTW, the "TÜV" charges only EUR 5.- for a sticker.

The sticker colours correspond to the EURO emission classes, they have nothing to do with the CO2 emissions. Class EURO 1 vehicles do not get any stickers, so they will be banned from all Umwelt Zones. Class EURO 2 vehicles get the red sticker, class EURO 3 vehicles (like the popular Ducato 2.8 JTD engine) yellow, and EURO 4 vehicles green.

Under certain conditions older vehicles might receive a "better" sticker if a particle filter is retrofitted."

I shall be getting my sticker the next time I visit Germany.

Don