| 1. |
1. URBAN MOBILITY: a relevant issue, for at least 5 good reasons: the numbers, the complexity, economic development, human rights, the guidelines of the European Community. |
| 1.1 |
People’s mobility is developing in terms of quality and quantity. The recent 3rd Isfort mobility report found that in 2005 Italians started moving around again (122 million/day, + 3.3 % vs 2004, after a few years’ stagnation; but since 1985 such growth had been 5% per annum). Let’s see a few figures: out of a 85% mobile population, the average number of daily movements (2.95, from 2.90 in large cities and metropolitan belts to 3.06 in medium cities); mobility time (56 minutes); number of cars per 100 people and car traffic and parking areas; distance covered (proximal mobility up to 2 km is on the rise, near 40%; another 40% is accounted for by mobility between 2 and 10 km, distances over 50 km make up 2% of the total: it is therefore basically a type of local mobility); externalities (costs related to congestion, accidents, noise and atmospheric pollution, greenhouse gases have been estimated at 50 billion euros for 2000); yearly energy consumption due to mobility (it can vary, depending on transport mode, by a few thousands of mega-joule/person); goods mobility (in urban areas, it is less than people’s mobility but it increases faster and has a comparatively greater impact) |
| 1.2 |
Mobility is complex due to a wide range of reasons (work/study=40%; leisure =30%; family life =30%); overall, people’s and goods flows are less and less organised and more and more varied, more random, and this is going to get worse if we keep aiming at an economy of variety. |
| 1.3 |
Mobility is a decisive factor of economic development. Let’s take as an example the area which hosts Mobilityshow, the provinces of Massa-Carrara and La Spezia: this is a junction/area, a crossroads/area, between the Mediterranean and the thoroughfares to Genoa, Turin and the north west; to Tuscany and the south; to Parma, Verona and the north-east. This strategic location must be made the most of, and the system of relationships must be developed, by finding a place in the scenario of infrastructural development and the transport system. But major connections works only if the centre, the junction works, if the internal connections of this metropolitan area work; this is an area of great natural value, imbued in history, with a strong identity that, to be really competitive, must also be able to rely on a responsible, proactive, sympathetic, unprejudiced local community. Urban quality and environmental balance are therefore important factors of growth and competitiveness: the development of the transport system must not lead to traffic congestion, economic inefficiency, energy waste, more accidents, more atmospheric and noise pollution, more occupied space, visual interference. |
| 1.4 |
In other words, the urban mobility system is a decisive factor for the competitiveness and quality of a territory, for everyone’s right to mobility, including the weakest ones, for the quality of their daily lives. |
| 1.5 |
The European Community, which for years (just think of the Urban project) has taken care of the continental and national relevance of the urban issue in the guidelines of the cohesion policies of 2007-2013, has further and specifically considered the city one of the territorial dimensions for the development and the implementation of actions.
The guidelines, for the local authorities to equip themselves with integrated planning tools, partly in connection with sustainable mobility, are powerful; over the last few years, the achievement of sustainable mobility in urban areas has rightly become a shared priority of the EU and the national policies on transport and the environment, and the benchmarks for an effective political response, which will reverse the current negative trends of urban and metropolitan mobility, look neater and neater. |
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| 2. |
The supply side, the response to the need of local mobility, must aim at a sustainable mobility model, which must be able to assert the role of the territory within the major transport routes and at the same time respond to the growing demand for people’s and goods mobility through systems that will slowly reduce the consumption of non-renewable resources (energy, air, territory), while helping improve the state of the environment. It is a mobility model, in which the rate of citizens carried by collective systems increases, partly through new types of services, a system that reduces the use of private vehicles and increases the use of more sustainable transport modes, by limiting the number and length of movements and developing combined transport systems, according to a more sustainable model; |
| 2.1 |
Higher economic sustainability is achieved through efficient goods transport and distribution, speedy trade, accessibility, the reduction of congestion, the reduction of the cost of vehicles (from energy carriers to wheels), the cost of private vehicles, of infrastructure, of traffic services, waste disposal, etc. |
| 2.2 |
Higher social sustainability is achieved through the respect of the right to mobility and the choice of transport for everyone, the increase in the health and safety of transport and road traffic, the decrease in travelling time, impact on the territory, noise, the barrier effect… |
| 2.3 |
Higher environmental sustainability and more respect for the environment are achieved through the reduction of noise and emissions and a lower consumption of raw materials and resources, through more energy efficiency, lower ideological impact and less waste production... |
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| 3. |
The range of products available on the market for a more sustainable people’s and goods mobility in urban areas is very wide: |
| 3.1 |
from infrastructural solutions to construction jobs, materials, items to improve existing infrastructures; |
| 3.2 |
from the development of the use of alternative energy carriers other than petrol or diesel (natural gas, LPG, bio-fuels) to low-emission traction systems, battery-operated vehicles, bicycles, motorbikes, cars, minibuses (while waiting for hydrogen) ; |
| 3.3 |
from innovative transport systems , PRT - personal rapid transit - to the comeback of trolleybuses and tramcars in the cities; from rapid urban railway services, to hectometre systems in support of pedestrian mobility, such as escalators and lifts; |
| 3.4 |
from new types of public transport to IT and ITC technology and mobility planning, management and control tools.
Now, mobility systems can make the most of fantastic achievements as well as the traction technology, IT and ITC technology. Today, this market offers a very wide range of basic technology, products and systems for the management of mobility and collective transport. Now, we can make use of a wide, varied selection of applications, which concern nearly all urban mobility areas.
An integrated ITC system is technically easy to develop; costs are affordable, especially if we consider the implementation can be phased in, and it can offer many benefits: efficiency of the general system, containment of running costs, quality and attractiveness of public transport, development of on-call services (on-call taxis, buses….) and new types of services, the development of new goods mobility models, functional connection of all mobility stakeholders and other citizens’ services working on the territory (taxi drivers, public transport companies, railway companies, municipal facilities, police forces, car park managers), widespread urban communication.
The market offers all that can contribute to a higher sustainability of the technological and logistic scenarios of mobility. There is a huge variety of very useful products to improve the state of affairs which can help achieve long-lasting solutions to provide more and more results with time, if they are incorporated in “integrated packages”, global plans that must not just concern development, but also management and maintenance, and which can be monitored and updated at all times, so as to adjust them to the specific features and needs of the territory. |
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| 4. |
The sustainable mobility planning strategy follows a few rationales; here they are, briefly: |
| 4.1 |
a rationale based on the centrality of demand, replacing the supply policies which have been followed once too often, with a new, strong “citizen-consumer”-orientation; |
| 4.2 |
a rationale based on the integration of mobility with territorial plans and city timing plans: the “transport system plan” should be related to the plans and choices made by every plan and every urban plan for industrial, commercial, craft and tourist developments and the refurbishment of decayed urban, central and suburban areas; |
| 4.3 |
a system-based rationale. Action plans must be based on an organised, integrated group of investments and organisational solutions, to be implemented according to a medium- and long-term schedule, while implementing, as soon as feasible, short-term actions and measures, for rationalising the supply side and managing the demand side. Not just investments (infrastructure, plants, technology, vehicles) but also organisational-managerial breakthroughs; not just private, individual transport, but also collective services; not just road works, but traffic control; not just public transport policies, but also parking policies, by developing not just car parks, but also policies, rates and services for those who need parking (residents, commuters, visitors) along with an integrated rating system which must include parking, access to areas and roads, LPT. |
| 4.4 |
a rationale based on ‘greater areas’, involving the extension of the transport system plan to several neighbouring municipalities; the problems of a municipality, a neighbourhood, can often be solved by taking action in a different municipality or neighbourhood as well; |
| 4.5 |
a rationale based on the readjustment of transport modes and inter-modality. Nowadays, 25% of total mobility takes place on foot or by bike, with motorbikes accounting for 6%, cars for 80.5%, public transport for 13.5% of all motor vehicles: in addition, cars are mostly used to cover short daily distances, in a way that is not proportionate to their potential uses: 60% up to 30 km/day; 75% up to 75; 90% up to 100. A readjustment is to be pursued through measures for the control and management of the demand for mobility, for traffic control and reduction, for Road Pricing and parking strategies; for the development and priority of public transport and non-polluting modes, car sharing and car pooling, for the improvement and rationalisation of public transport networks and for the improvement of its efficiency, ability, quality and ability to respond to real needs, integration with other modes, flexibility; |
| 4.6 |
a rationale based on shared planning: the involvement, the search for sharing, does not just lie in celebrating a style of governance based on consistency, transparency, efficiency, but also in raising the feasibility requirements of plans which aim at reversing the negative trends, which cause common habits to change, which look for some balance and mediation between often conflicting interests. |
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| 5. |
TIhe regulatory framework and mobility governance and control tools.
The regulatory framework, which has grown since the Nineties – basically a reformist one –, boosts those correct arrangements that overcome the critical points of the mobility system; it is a framework which promotes innovation, environmental sustainability, a systemic approach, the adhesion to local issues, the privatisation of some areas of public services, the strengthening of the public law-maker … the law in reform of local public transport (Law Decree 422/97) and the attendant regional legislation…the provisions of the Ministry of the Environment (which established the figure of the Mobility Manager and boosted new types of services and alternative traction systems)…the EU directives (on emissions, for instance) and the framework programs …the Merloni Act (no. 109/94), with articles regulating project financing, fit for being applied to the development of mobility infrastructures ……...the new Highway Code….the regulations on Traffic Plans…… Act 340, November 24th 2000, art. 22, which establishes the Urban Mobility Plans…
The PUT and PUM are the two key tools with which, in coordination and consultation with the territorial coordination plans and the town development plans, the local authorities plan and control their own mobility systems: |
| 5.1 |
the PUT (Urban Traffic Plan), a tactical, short-term plan (it expires once every two years, but it is in fact a process-plan to be regularly updated), with unchanged infrastructural resources, organises what is available in the best possible way and mostly relies on information about demand, which is regularly and effectively monitored, so it can timely tackle any critical point and line up the supply side through some ‘soft’ adjustments of roads, control, communication, management; |
| 5.2 |
the PUM (Urban Mobility Plan), which develops over 10 years, is the global mobility plan, the responsibility of the municipal authorities or their groupings and the provincial authorities, to include a number of measures that must be able to touch on the different spheres of the transport system in a far-ranging manner, in their different aspects, from planning to implementation, to management. With reference to our geographical area, the PUM should mostly concern:
| 5.2.1 |
the implementation of a rapid urban railway service, connecting Carrara with Massa and Versilia, with Sarzana and Lunigiana, with La Spezia and Le Cinque Terre; a frequent, tramway-like system, which would use the existing railway facility, especially the disused sections, as well as the station system, to be adjusted as new urban centres connected with conversion and development areas and ‘park and ride’ areas; |
| 5.2.2 |
the adjustment of road infrastructures, their managerial models, for strengthening the province’s polycentric territorial system, and connections with domestic/European networks (priorities: third motorway lane from S. Stefano to Viareggio, pay toll system, Aurelia and Cisa, coast road to Versilia and Marinella, Romito, the Marble Road…); |
| 5.2.3 |
the development of proximal parking lots, ‘park and ride’ areas and parking fixtures; |
| 5.2.4 |
the improvement of traffic and parking systems all over the territory; |
| 5.2.5 |
the improvement of the supply side and public transport services, partly through measures to improve the ‘park and ride’ networks; to extend special and protected trails; to promote economic and other benefits of collective transport through special and discounted rates, with such special conditions being funded by the proceeds of the parking rates; |
| 5.2.6 |
the promotion of cycling-pedestrian transport and the development of suitable networks, to be progressively extended; |
| 5.2.7 |
the adoption of systems and tools for the management of the demand of mobility. |
Therefore, under Act 340/2000, the PUM is an integrated planning tool (with the sustainability dimension that we have expressly considered) through which the local authorities volunteer to gain access to a fund, for funding not so much the development of works, but rather the achievement of some given targets. Unfortunately, this regulatory intuition has had no operational applications yet, and attention has been paid to major works, instead. The infrastructural component is obviously decisive for adjusting the transport system, but on its own it is not enough; actually, its components (regulation, management, communication….) can provide more timely responses to emergencies, while lying favourable grounds for the infrastructure, once completed, to produce the greatest benefits. But there is another planning tool that is spreading all over Europe and now even in Italy (RECS, the strategic city network is getting wider and wider…Florence, La Spezia, Turin, Trento, Catania, Terni, Perugia, Verona, Venice, Cuneo, Pesaro….) |
| 5.3 |
The Strategic Plan, which develops over 10-15 years, is an extremely helpful tool, especially when there is a need for inconsistency, a change of habit, and therefore a deep sharing. By starting and developing a strategic planning process – fuelled and implemented by a relentless, systematic monitoring and rating process – the local authorities manage to outline the visions of a desirable and credible future for the city, to locate the thoroughfares and the tracks, to trigger a continued planning process. They can do this by building, at the same time, a shared city plan and a participatory process where everyone takes on some responsibility, by fitting the local stakeholders into a sort of system, to kick-start a positive-addition game between the interests at stake, fit for promoting integration and agreement between the public and private sectors. The Strategic Plan is not the Plan of the Administration or a plan for the city, but it is the Plan of the city. Doing strategic planning means to experiment with shared public decision-making models, deploy a new political-administrative culture based on responsibility and a distinction of roles, but above all on cooperation and on the sharing of targets among the authorities, the economic and social stakeholders, the population. A PUM integrated with the Strategic city plan fulfils the requirements of higher consistency, effectiveness, possible sustainability, and can boost cooperation among the many stakeholders that move on the mobility scenario. |
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| 6. |
Cooperation among stakeholders. As to urban mobility, there is a multitude of protagonists: |
| 6.1 |
the Province (the direction, the Greater Area plans, the LPT service plans), the Municipalities, sympathetic to the local needs, not just through a consistent listening to such needs (observatories), but above all through a really decentralised policy, with their Districts, which are essential in plans that often concern some greater areas but which must start from the local needs and must rely on wide involvement; the Port Authorities, in that they play a political role in port cities. Apart from the ‘Greater Areas’ infrastructural plans, which are decisive for the local mobility system, which in most cases require cooperation between different provincial authorities (in this case Massa-Carrara, La Spezia, Lucca…), there are also areas of immediate operating cooperation and helpful, quick profits:
| 6.1.1 |
the organisational models for the governance of integrated and shared planning processes between mobility and the territory, and for the monitoring and control of compliance between the supply and the demand sides and their consistent updating (Management and offices of the provincial mobility plan; Mobility observatory; Mobility information system; Forums; Advisory committees…). This is not about creating new facilities, but it is about networking and systematising all the existing activities that concert mobility; |
| 6.1.2 |
the lestablishment of a Mobility Managers’ network (provincial, municipal, district-wide, company-wide…) to develop and coordinate the techniques and tools for managing the demand for mobility and to optimise the mobility of employees, students, the population of districts and villages. |
| 6.1.3 |
the development of a technological infrastructure in its different components, in support of the management of the different aspects of mobility and collective transport (vehicle traffic management systems; environmental monitoring systems; fleet location and monitoring systems; integrated parking management systems; information systems; automatic charging systems; flexible on-call systems …) |
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| 6.2 |
ex-state companies, now gone public, still fully or partly owned by the public sector. These are the companies that manage networks and produce services, especially public transport companies, which can and must become mobility companies. These companies are in a privileged position, which right now is their value, their strength, their potential development: on one side, they are deeply rooted in the territory after working there for decades, and therefore, they are sympathetic to the local communities, their needs, their demand for mobility; on the other side, they are owned by all the shareholding Municipalities and therefore they are sympathetic to the intents of the law-making bodies. Obviously, changing the articles of incorporation is not sufficient if one moves, according to an obsolete attitude, from the ‘deficits’ shelf to the refinancing operations, but the acquisition of a new profile, new rationales, new skills can make them grow in such an interesting market and at the same time it can decisively help redress the mobility system according to the shareholders’ targets. So, on one side there is the need of the owners’ mobility policies, on the other side there is the need of industrial plans for implementing these companies’ policies.. |
| 6.3 |
transport and parking operators, State Railways companies and all the old and new companies that could potentially grow in this market. Actions may be taken in many different areas (mobility service system, new technology, communication system, urban landscaping, infrastructure, property development….), the range of systems, products, services that a company can undertake to produce is wide.
This concerns a formerly special or syndicated company which has gone public; a company which is the result of an amalgamation/merger/split between public bodies and/or private groups; a big network-company which is composed of several companies in the form of alliances, shareholdings, new incorporations; a new technology company; a small-size company, extremely suitable for developing new types of services, but above all for maintaining that culture of quality and citizen-orientation that a strengthening process could diminish. |
| 6.4 |
the economic stakeholders, usually interested in a sustainable mobility system (industry, crafts, trade…). |
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The role of a city and the development of a territory are based, first and foremost, on the local stakeholders’ ability to team up, in order to kick-start and carry out shared development processes, which will mobilise the existing local resources and skills and which will integrate and involve such government levels in the planning and funding process. In order to take action and offer a territory new opportunities to grow and attract resources, a governance system must be put in place, so as to bring together all the social and economic forces that work in that territory. The same applies to the mobility issue, an extremely relevant issue, which cuts across so many other issues; from citizenship rights to infrastructures, from the urban system to the environment, the identity of a territory, from the development of the companies to the new professions, to employment. |
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