Safe, green and innovative: here is the future of public transport that the pandemic has prompted to revolutionize its structure. This is what emerged in the eighth edition of CityTech 2021, the national appointment on the delicate issues concerning the economic and social changes of cities, underway in Milan City Life from 23 to 24 September 2021.
“In the post-Covid period we need to rethink the times of the city. We need a balance between the physical and digital networks. There mobility of the future lives on and off: large extraordinary events, such as the Salone del Mobile or the Milan Fashion Week, must become ordinary facts in terms of mobility with digital technology. We need to build a system that no longer lives on a demand that crosses supply with contradictory elements. Because according to a purely industrial logic, the means available to the citizen during peak hours are undersized, while in the so-called "soft" hours the offer is overabundant, with empty or partially empty vehicles, but with always very high costs". words of Andrea Gibelli, President of Asstra (the national association of local public transport companies in Italy), during the afternoon session of the event.
The repercussions on transport systems due to Covid have been innumerable and this has highlighted the need to rethink mobility, especially in large cities. Citytech's work will focus on the main drivers of change, such as: safety and efficiency of public transport, new business models,3 sustainability and transition to electricity, new times in the city and smart working, connectivity, big data and solutions for the stop.
Gibelli then added: “We have to intercept the intersection between supply and demand by lowering the “peak” curve and raising the “soft” curve. Much certainly depends on the smart working, but it cannot be an episodic fact it will have to become a structural fact. We need basic mobility and flexible mobility to respond to the demand for safe mobility, which has emerged in the post-Covid period, as an alternative to the car that citizens often resort to due to time constraints. That's the real challenge: a physical network with a digital component that can handle this kind of flexibility".
As regards the reform of local public transport, Gibelli underlined the obvious difficulty with respect to the context in which it was born. “A year ago, all responsibility for the mobility situation was unloaded. Today is different because thanks to correct information and a different political climate it has been possible to create a service more accepted by citizens and greater perceived security. However, a series of regulatory updates is needed, starting with the European Directive, a debate still open in the EU. Today we go to the energy transitiontowards digital and industrial alliances are worth more than legal impositions. There are those who look to 2035 but it is too far from the agenda of the PNRR. Any reform must keep all possibilities open: if we start thinking in a local or too centralized way, we run into the service contract which risks being a further aggravating factor with respect to the degree of flexibility required by the evolution of the sector”.
Finally, Gibelli recalled that urban regeneration also plays a fundamental role for a structural change in mobility, such as the WIRES project presented on July 2nd. “FILI goes in the direction of both sustainability and green transition issues, but amplifies the scale by imagining a linear forest of 72 km from Cadorna to the Malpensa airport station with 4 urban regeneration projects plus a super cycle path, i.e. a path integrated with the iron. The travel perceiver must find a new central place in railway stations, a place that represents a portal and not a station between a series of activities that the individual does during his day. In this sense we have thought of a series of lockers to allow people to do their shopping on board the train”, concluded the President of Asstra.
