Analysis of entering flows in the congestion pricing Area C of Milan

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.