A London-style congestion charge caused chaos in Milan on its first day, with motorists and police complaining that online and free-phone payment systems had broken down.

The congestion charges are intended to reduce traffic and pollution in Milan, the centre of Italy’s industrial heartland as well as its financial, business and fashion capital. Under the scheme, called Ecopass, motorists are charged €2-€10 (£1.50-£7.50) to enter a zone of 8sq km (3sq miles). In London, where the charge was introduced four years ago, motorists pay a flat rate of £8.

The charges are levied on a sliding scale of engine types, with the most polluting vehicles being charged the most and the “least polluting” ones, such as scooters and electric or methane cars, being exempt. The charge applies on weekdays, from 7.30am to 7.30pm. Residents can pay a fixed annual fee of up to €250 or buy discounted multiple-entry passes. Cameras at 43 “gates” will monitor vehicles, with fines of €70 for offenders.

Letizia Moratti, the Mayor of Milan, who formulated the plan after taking office nearly two years ago, said that it was part of a wider project to reduce smog and increase the use of public transport. She forecast that the scheme would raise €24 million a year, two thirds of which would be ploughed back into public transport. Milan, best known to visitors because of its ornate cathedral, Leonardo da Vinci’sThe Last Supper and its fashion district, already has an efficient but limited underground Metro.

The Milan city plan, to which the centre-left Government of Romano Prodi and the Lombardy region have contributed €3.5 billion, involves doubling the Metro network by 2015 as well as encouraging car sharing and introducing cycle paths. However, because of opposition Ms Moratti has reduced the charge zone from a planned 60sq km. The launch was delayed from last October until after the Christmas and new year holidays.

Police said that the full impact of the scheme would not be felt until next week, since yesterday was only a partial return to work, with many Italians extending their holiday until this weekend. Ms Moratti admitted that there had been technical problems but said that they were being resolved.

Milan officials said that the aim was to cut pollution by a third. Because of domestic and industrial heating, as well as its traffic, Milan frequently exceeds the European Union pollution limit, according to the Italian environmental pressure group Legambiente.

More than half of Milan’s residents get around by car, scooter or motorcycle, with nearly 90,000 cars a day entering the centre. Rome and Turin, which operate “no-car” Sundays, are considering similar schemes. Many Italian towns and cities already have charge zones in their historic centres, but the varying restrictions cause confusion and some Italians evade them by driving in backwards, so that on camera they appear to be leaving.

In the zone

— Less than a third of journeys in Milan are made on public transport

— Milan has the third-highest number of cars per citizen among European cities, after Naples and Rome

— According to city officials, traffic on the first day of the scheme was 40 per cent lower than normal

— The European Conference of Ministers of Transport says that road congestion costs European economies an estimated 1 per cent of GDP annually

— Tolls and fines from London’s congestion zone generate about £120 million a year

Sources: oecd.org; cemt.org; statistics.gov.uk; Times archives

Times Recommends

• Tehran cannot live up to its rhetoric
• The new unicycle that will ‘change the world’
• We cannot wish away Iran’s bomb