Congestion, energy consumption, pollution and the need to increase transport systems sustainability are top priorities to be solved in urban areas. Such situations, typical of most European cities, guided the European Commission to financially support projects aimed at reducing vehicles negative effects on environment, by increasing accessibility, optimizing economic resources in transport management and improving citizens quality of life. The paper presents the main findings of one of the above projects (MIRACLES), focusing on the set of measures implemented by Rome Municipality during the project, including incentives to attract passengers to transit and disincentives to the use of private cars. In particular, the most relevant aspects such as city centre access restriction, road pricing, good delivery system re-organization and the development of collective taxis will be analyzed because of their innovative features and potential to achieve improvements. The paper also deals with the suitable methodology, apt to control and to validate all the implementation steps, that has been applied in the Rome case study. Under this point of view, particular attention has been paid to simulate scenarios for assessing the feasibility of measures related to pricing, and how they could affect the built environment. Finally, users reactions to restriction policy changes are outlined.
Abstract