People in this community of 115,000 will have to use public transport between February 2 and 8, under a new city order.

Exceptions will be police, emergency services, taxis, disabled drivers, people going to weddings or funerals, cars on liquid gas, hybrids and electrically powered vehicles.

Citizens must also keep domestic heating to no more than 20 degrees Celsius (68 degrees Fahrenheit) during the period.

Several Italian cities including Rome and Milan have imposed similar temporary restrictions on cars when an absence of wind, rain or snow make pollution worse.

One-day restrictions were imposed last Sunday in Milan and about 100 other communities mainly in the north, including Bergamo, Mantua and Verona.

Rome and Milan have also been testing a measure banning cars with even- or odd-numbered license plates on alternate Thursdays.

Similar schemes are already in place in cities such as Venice, Turin and Verona. Florence, meanwhile, has decreed that on three days each week vehicles not equipped with catalytic converters on their exhaust systems are banned from its streets.

Before the centre-right government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi came to power in May 2001, car-free Sundays were a regular feature, though not always very popular.

But Environment Minister Altero Matteoli doubts whether temporary traffic restrictions will resolve the smog problem.

"There must be structural reorganising," he said Monday. Last week the minister said alternative traffic was ineffective, suggesting instead offering premiums to drivers who give up older cars which caused more pollution.

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