Analysis of entering flows in the congestion pricing
Area C of Milan
Lorenzo Mussone
Politecnico di Milano
Department ABC
Milano, Italy
mussone@polimi.it
Abstract—This paper deals with the analysis of traffic flow,
trying to exploit whether intra-period and inter-period kinds of
dynamics may occur in a hierarchical structure: week-to-week,
within-week, within-day dynamics, and whether analysis of
within-week dynamics may be restricted to distinguish days of
week (or working days) vs. weekend days only or whether each
day should be analysed in details. An in-depth statistical analysis
of data available for the real case of Area C in Milan (Italy)
shows some particular structures in entry patterns giving some
insights for supporting transport policy and assessment of
external costs. Particularly, lags between entries of each vehicle
present a trend strongly linked to a weekly frequency.
Keywords— traffic flow evolution; congestion charge zone;
controlled accesses; statistical analyses
I. INTRODUCTION
Analysis of traffic flow, at different time scales, generally
oriented to prediction, is a constant and crucial aim in
transportation research and engineering. This task can be
carried out in many ways according to the scope of study.
Significant progress in the field is due to the diffusion of
Computational Intelligence and Data Mining approaches in
analysing data: besides classical statistical parametric methods
(e.g. ARIMA), non parametric models such as Neural and
Bayesian Networks, Radial Basis Functions, Fuzzy and
Evolutionary algorithms, or Kalman filter are also used [1].
Discussion about advantages of statistics vs. computational
intelligence is still ongoing [2].
Perhaps short-term forecasting, that is from a few seconds
to a few hours, is the best known application field because of
its potential and pervasive use in dynamic control and real
time applications [1]. Also mid-term forecasting (from a few
hours to one or more days) may also be of interest since it can
explain user dynamic choices over longer periods. This type of
forecasting has opened the door to another wide field of
research in day-to-day dynamics where the adaptive nature of
traveller choices and the transport system over successive
similar time periods is described [3].
Traffic flows greatly vary over time, and two levels of
dynamics are often considered: intra-period dynamics,
sometimes called within-day dynamics, occurring within each
of a series of similar time periods; inter-period dynamics,
occurring between consecutive similar time periods.
978-1-5386-3917-7/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE
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This paper will try to analyse whether and how intra-
period and inter-period kinds of dynamics may occur in a
hierarchical structure: week-to-week, within-week, within-day
dynamics, and whether analysis of within-week dynamics may
be restricted to distinguish weekdays vs. weekend days only or
whether each single day should be analysed in details.
This study can be inserted into extensive research on the
charging policy applied to entering vehicles in the Milan area
called Area C (but it is not limited to it, since the presented
methodology can be applied to every monitored area); it aims
at providing evidence about this policy from the point of view
of demand choices and to develop tools and models useful for
its description and the assessment of external costs due to
congestion and pollution. The opportunity to do this derives
from the detection of number plates of all vehicles entering
this area, allowing to know the actual universe of this process.
The proposed approach is suited for large amount of
available data, but collected only for traffic control purpose, so
that available data concern only entering flows which traverse
the border of the area; no data are available about exit and
circulating flow, a part occasional surveys on circulating flow.
The large amount of data that has become available in
processes like this is a first issue to be faced; in this sense, the
paper follows that by Lv et al. [4]. The dimensions of data
make computing challenging and stimulate the use of new
paradigms and ways of analysing data.
Another question to be faced concerns the multivariate
nature of this process, as it is in any process related to traffic.
Unfortunately, from this point of view data are very scarce and
neither information about social economic attributes of drivers
and the reasons of their journey, nor about vehicle
characteristics is available. It is worth to underline that this
limitation hinders a wider generalization of results since many
links to overall potential demand cannot be stated.
The paper is organized into further four sections. Section 2
describes Area C and the data collection scenario; Sections 3
and 4 show the results of statistical analyses and the specific
lag analysis worked out on collected data. Finally, Section 5
draws conclusions.
II. THE TEST-BED: AREA C IN MILAN
The city of Milan and surrounding municipalities
constitute a metropolitan area positioned in the centre of the
Po valley, Northern Italy. Whilst forming a relevant
destination in its own right, Milan also lies at a cross-roads for
the main routes towards the south of the country and for traffic
with destinations in the North. In the centre of Milan there is
the area of “Cerchia dei Bastioni” (Fig 1) that can be
represented by a network of about 2700 links, 1800 nodes and
160 centroids. Area C is contained in “Cerchia dei Bastioni”
which includes also the ring roads surrounding Area C.
The “Cerchia dei Bastioni” was the subject of a charging
policy from 2nd January 2008 to 31st December 2011, called
Ecopass. From 16 January 2012 the same area became the
subject of a different policy called Area C [5]. The differences Fig. 1. The “Cerchia dei Bastioni” area in Milan with locations of controlled
between the two policies concern: points (blue circles for all vehicles, red ones only for public transport) for
accessing Area C
• Ecopass aimed to reduce air pollution, while Area C
aims to reduce congestion first and then pollution; TABLE I. AVAILABLE DATA ABOUT VEHICLES ENTERING AREA C

• the amount of charging for Ecopass was 2 and for Area File Number
Description of records
C is 5 Euros; the tickets allow vehicles a free name
circulation and unlimited entry/exit from the area; Transiti Vehicle entries by day and time of entries. Data 64,770,30
were collected in January-February, and 0
• In Ecopass only high-polluting engines were charged September 2011 and for all 2012
while in Area C all private vehicles must pay but some Veicoli Some MCTC (the Italian public automobile 5,599,580
exemptions or reductions may apply. register) information about vehicles
Residenti Residents inside Area C (only those who 40,180
Area C has 43 access points each controlled by a video required registration)
system (Fig. 1). Seven of them are dedicated exclusively to Autorizzati Authorized vehicles 146,377
public transport. Video cameras detect the passage of vehicles VDS Service vehicles 31,955
entering the area by reading license plates. A central system Telepass Vehicles provided by Telepass RFID 306,551
then recognizes the vehicle type, owner and charge due. It also RID Vehicles paying by RID (Italian direct 80,034
withdrawal)
provides information for fines or sanctions as needed. It is
working all weekdays from 7:30 to 19:30 except on Thursday
when it ends at 18:00. Available data and the relative number
of records are described in Table 1. All files are linked
according to the license plate number field properly recoded
for privacy. A file with the calendar of what really happened
(when the pricing was applied and when it was not) was also
used.
The strength of this dataset is that it contains all records of
each vehicle entering since 2011 (apart from a few detection
errors), leading to databases of several millions of records.
Weaknesses depend on the fact that we do not have
Fig. 2. Number of vehicles entering Area C hourly in year 2011 and 2012
information about vehicles (for class, dimension, engine size, subdivided into Area C ON and OFF (all data)
seats, etc.), exits and circulation inside Area C, and drivers
and number of passengers per vehicle.
and in the following section IV:
III. PRELIMINARY STATISTICAL ANALYSES • Analysis of lag between entries,
Extensive analysis was carried out in order to characterize • Cross-covariance and cross-correlation between
data and to identify behaviour patterns of vehicles entering entries,
Area C (both when payment must be made [called Area C
ON], and not [Area C OFF]). It must be underlined that Area • PCA on lags,
C is OFF not only in the remaining time (when Area C is ON) • Analysis of vehicles entering the first time.
but also when for any reason charging is not applied.
These analyses are reported in two sections, precisely, in A. General descriptive Statistics
this section III: These analyses report simple statistical results on data
• General descriptive statistics, aggregated by the Area C operational state (ON and OFF);
number and average number of entries, entries by day, and
• Kolmogorov-Smirnov test on frequency of entries, vehicle use.
• Anova analysis on number of entries; In Fig. 2 the total number of entries subdivided into Area

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C ON and OFF is drawn up. Since it represents the total over a
very large range (years 2011 and 2012) the effect of abnormal
days (when Area C is not active for bureaucratic or
administrative reasons) can be assumed to be of little
relevance. The figure shows a very typical shape for Area C
ON with a peak in the early morning (8:00-9:00) and then a
decreasing trend till the end of charging. Conversely, a higher
peak on the curve of Area C OFF can be observed just after
19:30; presumably due to vehicles waiting for entry when the
payment period expires. Fig. 3 and Fig. 4 show the number of
entries for each recorded day subdivided into Area C ON and
OFF, according to whether vehicles entered for only one day
and for more than 30 days (that is very frequent vehicles).
There are significant differences: the total number of
entries per day is about 3,000-4,000 veh/day for one entry
vehicles against 90,000 veh/day for more than 30 entry
vehicles. The number of entries per day when Area C is ON is
sensibly higher for one entry vehicles; trend is quite stationary
for one entry vehicles while it is rather variable for more than
30 entry vehicles. Vehicles with multiple entries (in the same
day) is limited to a small fraction of the whole, though it is
more likely that a vehicle entering during the payment period,
with respect the OFF period, enters again within the same day.
Fig. 3. Number of vehicles entering Area C only one day, by day of year (x-
axis, from 2011 to 2012) and subdivided into Area C ON and OFF
Fig. 4. Number of vehicles entering Area C more than 30 days, by day of
year (x-axis, days from 2011 to 2012) and subdivided into Area C ON and
OFF
Distribution of known characteristics about vehicles is
very abnormal since one category (owner) assimilates about
79% of the whole set, and, counting it together with the
category ‘hire without driver’, similar to ‘owner’ for travelling
choice, we sum up the 90% of the total. A similar distribution
holds true also for subsets Area C ON and OFF.
B. Kolmogorov Smirnov tests
The Kolmogorov Smirnov test was used to determine
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whether the frequency of the number of entries (over time),
and the daily average number of entries (for each day),
according to the day of week (for the two subsets, Area C ON
and OFF) could be drawn up from the same underlying
continuous distribution (null hypothesis). From the point of
view of the test, results are very similar whether or not the
frequency or the average is considered. The highest p-values
are found for Area C ON (in weekdays); the two weekend
days are generally very different between themselves and from
weekdays. The null hypothesis can be rejected only for the
relationships between weekdays and weekend days.
In some cases the alternate hypothesis (the data are not
from the same continuous distribution) can be rejected at a 5%
significance level, e.g. for Wednesday and Thursday, and
Wednesday and Tuesday. There are some slight differences
according to the number of days a vehicle enters Area C; we
can conservatively state that up to three entries the
commutative relationships between Tuesday, Wednesday and
Thursday have a higher level of significance than the
remaining ones. No relationship is found between data of Area
C ON and Area C OFF.
C. Anova analysis on the number of entries
Another type of analysis concerns the analysis of variance
of aggregated data of entries for weekdays (from Monday to
Friday) and weeks when Area C is ON. Considering weeks
containing no missing data or zeros (due to holidays, strikes,
or non operational days), a matrix with 30 rows (weeks) and 5
columns (weekdays) is analysed.
One-way and two-way Anova analyses are worked out
with the null hypothesis that all samples in the reference
matrix are drawn from populations with the same mean (a low
value of p means that the hypothesis is not correct and
differences between means are not due to random
fluctuations). From the p-value (p=(Prob>F)=0.2367) of one-
way Anova it can be argued that there are no (great)
differences between weekdays, while there are significant
differences between weeks (p=(Prob>F)=0). Two-way Anova
applied to weekdays and weeks (with and without interaction
term) shows that:
• there are differences between weekdays (columns), p
of columns=(Prob>F)=0.0001. This result overturns the
result obtained by the one-way Anova and states that
differences between weekdays are more relevant when
taking into account also differences between weeks;
• there are differences between weeks (rows), p of
rows=(Prob>F)=0;
• there is no interaction between weekdays and weeks,
(Prob>F)=0.
IV. LAG ANALYSES
This section reports detailed analyses of lags between
entries carried out to investigate particular relationships for
vehicles with the same number of entries (one or more).
A. Analysis of lag between entries
These analyses consider the lag between entries, that is
distance (in days) between consecutive entries (on different
days) of the same vehicle and subdivide data into classes,
called lag. This aims at finding some behavioural patterns
allowing us a better understanding of the process and some
hints for modelling. In these analyses we considered the
average lag for each vehicle (calculated as the ratio of the
interval between the day of the first entry, d1, and the day of
the last one, d2, and the number of entries, n, minus one:
).
Fig. 5 shows the curves of frequency split for the first three
lags (2, 3, and 4) for Area C ON. The case lag=0 (meaning
that a vehicle has entered only once) has a much higher value
than other cases and, since out of scale, it is not reported.
Fig. 5. Frequency of average lag for Area C for the first three classes of total
number of days of entries (2, 3 and 4)
a)
b) c)
Fig. 6. 3D frequency plot of lag and number of entries for the whole year
2012, a); only for Area C OFF, b); only for Area C ON, c)
An obvious result is that the curve for Area C OFF is
higher than that of Area C ON but both have a certain
periodicity of lags equal to 7 days or its multiple, as observed
in correlation analyses (subsection IV.B): this means that
successive entries are more likely to occur on the same day of
successive weeks. Periodicity is also observed in detailed
curves drawn for a single lag with Area C ON (Fig. 5); in this
case the presence of other periodicities is easily recognizable.
Three types of 3D diagrams (for number of entries and lag,
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respectively on the x- and y-axis) are drawn up depending on
the meaning of the z-axis: frequency (for each lag), total
number of entries (the product of frequency multiplied by the
number of entries for each lag), average number of entries per
day (the average number of entries per day for each lag). In
Fig. 6 the frequency type is proposed both for total entries, a),
for Area C OFF, b), and Area C ON, c). The “coral reef“
effect (values are on the curve xy=cost§365) observed in these
figures is due to the size of the data set which is limited to the
year 2012.
Also from these figures a periodicity (mainly of 7 days)
emerges especially for a lower number of entries. However, it
must be underlined that the most relevant contribution to total
entries is given by vehicles with a high number of entries.
Hence, further studies also on these subsets are needed and
proposed in the following sub-section.
B. Cross-covariance and cross-correlation between entries
Cross-covariance φ xy is calculated by:
φ xy ( m ) = E {( x n+m (
− μ x ) yn − μ y )* } (1)
where μx and μy are the mean values of the two stationary
random processes, xn and yn, and cross-correlation is
calculated by:
{ } {
R xy ( m ) = E x n + m y*n = E x n y*n − m } (2)
where xn and yn are jointly stationary random processes with
∞<n<+∞ ; * denotes the complex conjugate, and E{·} is the
expected value operator. Both formulas have outcome in the
range (0,1). The difference between the two formulas is that
cross-covariance calculates the mean of the two random
processes before calculating cross-correlation, and this allows
us to know the interrelation between processes without the
effect of mean.
Fig. 7. Cross-covariance of frequency of number of entries between 2-entries
when Area C ON and all other number of entries (in legend) (on x-axis there
is covariance lag and on y-axis cross-covariance (multiplied by factor 108)
The calculated curves are symmetrical only if the
processes considered have the same shape. They are obviously
cases sensitive to m and to n sign when their differences are
relevant. In these analyses m and n represent the average
distance between entry days and the processes xn and yn refer
to different number of entries (from 2 to 20). The two analyses
are applied to three datasets, representing the time series of the
frequency of number of entries, the total number of entries
(equal to the product of frequency and number of entries) , and
the average number of entries by day, all split up for Area C
ON and OFF, with the aim of mining their properties. In
proposed figures y-axis scale changes according to observed
maximum value (in order to guarantee readability).
Asymmetry is particularly relevant for diagrams involving the
total number of entries and less for the frequency of number of
entries (Fig. 7) and much less for the average number of
entries. This result highlights that the total number of entries
values are as much greater as the number of entries increases
with respect to the values of the other two datasets.
No relevant differences are revealed between results of
cross-covariance and cross-correlation stating that the mean of
these processes has not a particular effect on their
interrelation. All curves have peaks at lags equal to seven and
its multiples, and these peaks are more relevant for a lower
number of entries.
C. PCA on lags
PCA (Principal Component Analysis) [6] is applied to find
the most significant lags (variables in PCA) in data with Area
C ON for year 2012. In these analyses lag represents the exact
distance between two entries. We added also this analysis to
effectively extract information and to show them by
highlighting variables containing the most part of variance in
data. Analyses are carried out using both all data and “modulo
7” aggregated data. “Modulo 7” means that data are
aggregated by summing up the occurrences of one lag (in the
range 1-7) with its multiples of 7 (e.g. cases with lag = 1 are
summed up together with those of lag equal to 8, 15, 22, 29,
...).
Some results are reported in Fig. 8 only for NED (Number
of Entry Days; no matter how entries are made in a day) equal
to 10, for conciseness, but similar figures were prepared for
NED equal to 2 up to 150. Fig. 8 contains a mosaic (3x4) of
figures. The first row reports PCA results for the original data
set. The four diagrams concern vectors (of variables, in blue)
and data (in red) for the first two components, the first and
third component, the second and third component, and the
fourth and fifth component, respectively for the first up to the
fourth diagram. The second row reports the same diagrams
obtained from PCA but applied to “modulo 7” data. The third
row reports the cumulative curves of explained variance for
PCA applied to all data (first diagram) and to “modulo 7” data
(second diagram). The final two diagrams, (3,3) (3,4), refer to
the curves of normalized frequency for a certain lag
occurrence and the same subdivided by weekdays.
The most significant variable is different according to
which NED is considered. The most significant lags related to
the 1st component of PCA are :
3, 4, and 7 for NED =2,
1 and 3 for NED > 3.
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Fig. 8. PCA for vehicles with 10 entries
The most significant lags related to the 2nd component of
PCA are :
1 for NED =2,
1 and 3 for NED =4,
3 for NED = 6,
3 and 5 for NED = 10,
2, 3, 4, and 5 for NED = 30 up to 50,
1, 2, and 3 for NED = 100.
Lag=1 is the most significant variable when NED > 3.
Lag=7 has a relevant role when NED=2 and for the 4th and
5th component only when NED <30. In general, the first
component explains at least 40% of the variance present in
data. The first five PCA components explain about 80% of the
total variance (diagram (3,1) in fig.8). The higher the NED the
higher the explained variance when the number of principal
components is equal.
“Modulo 7” data give almost exactly the same results of
entire data when NED is above 25. For NED lower than 25 the
most significant lags are a little different.
These figures confirm the results obtained from the
previous analyses: the characteristics of entries are strongly
correlated to how many entries will be made over time; there
are clear differences between vehicles that make few and
many entries and between the weekdays when the first entry is
made.
D. Analysis of vehicles entering for the first time in the year
Vehicles entering for the first time represent a specific
process without no past story and it can be considered a
random process, like a Markovian one. Analysis is based on
data for 2012 only.
One entry vehicles (over the year) for each weekday is
shown in Fig. 9 (bottom curves) together with the total of
entered vehicles (top curves) by week and weekday (in
legend). Fig. 9 shows that:
• there are no great differences between weekdays;
• the process takes some weeks to converge towards a
value of about 5% of total entered vehicles.

Fig. 9: Number of vehicles at first entry (subscript F, bottom curves without
line indicators) and total of vehicles entered (subscript M, top curves with line
indicators) for each weekday.
In any case, the slope at the end of year (51st week) is not
completely flat and a further decrease could be verified with
data assembled in successive years. The tangent to the curve
knee crosses the x-axis near the 11th week which means,
considering that, during the first two weeks of the year, Area
C was not active, a typical time of about 30 effective days.
Some isolated positive spikes in the total curve are related to
single days and do not affect first entry vehicles.
Fig. 9 also shows that there is a lower variability (in
absolute values) of first entry vehicles along the year with
respect to the total number. It seems reasonable to hypothesize
that first entry vehicles represent a random process with
constant mean and very low variance; on the other hand, we
have shown previously that multiple entry vehicles are
strongly correlated according to the days. This result suggests
that the overall entry demand can be split into two
components: the former (almost) fixed due to a first entry and
the latter strongly dependent on previous entries. Hence, we
can assume that, finished the transitory, an amount of about
5% of total entries is due to vehicles entering for the first time
(including those vehicles entering only once).
V. CONCLUSIONS
The presented preparatory analyses represent a possible
pattern of estimation methods that have really some policy and
then practical implications to help analysing the assessment of
externalities in that transportation system. It can help to know
what a change of fares or what actions directed to some
categories of vehicles imply both for congestion and pollution
control. For example, if vehicles entering only once is less
than 5% each day (like the case of Area C in Milan suggests
for 2012 data), it does not make sense to address special care
to this category in order to reduce the total daily amount of
entering vehicles.
The huge amount of data to analyse represents the
nowadays challenge and means that it is more than ever
necessary both to compute our efforts and to devise efficient
keywords to manage and make good use of those data. A
crucial point that arose while studying the case of Area C of
Milan, is that while datasets are collected only for
administrative purposes (specifically for payment of charges)
some useful information emerged regarding normal travel, a
very few information can be on converse available about
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travel process (e.g. trip motivations). This makes it difficult to
investigate the relationships between driver behaviour and the
number of entries into Area C (both within one day and from
day to day). In order to come to terms with the many
unknowns presented by this situation, it will need to plan data
survey whether the overall process should be studied. The lack
of data about vehicles and drivers as well as data on exits and
circulation inside Area C, seems to be crucial in the sense that
it hinders or even prevents a thorough analysis of the problem,
especially as regards driver choices.
For the above mentioned reasons the many analyses
worked out are all based on the vehicle plate number, on the
date and time a vehicle entered Area C, with aggregated and
disaggregated data. All analyses (Kolmogorov-Smirnov test,
Anova, cross-correlation, PCA) arrived at the same conclusion
which pinpoints a strong connection between successive
entries of the same vehicle. In particular, lag distribution per
vehicle (that is the distance in days between two consecutive
entries) is related to the number of entries (in one year) and
follows patterns that have been well highlighted by PCA. By
adopting a “modulo 7” data aggregation (section IV.C), PCA
gives the same results obtainable by the original dataset when
the number of entries (in one year) is greater than 25. This
highlights that the most part of the process can be described by
taking into account only very frequent vehicles.
By using lag between entries as key for analysing data, we
highlighted a relevant difference between weekdays. A similar
result is also shown in the paper by Crawford et al. [7] who
applied a statistical analysis (Functional Data Analysis) on
flow curves.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Thanks are due to the Mobility, Environment, Territory
Agency of Milan (AMAT-MI) who provided data for this
research.
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