Nowadays most cities are faced with increasing traffic congestion and decreasing public transport market share. This situation calls for a new strategic approach to urban public transport, where multimodal transport should assume a more important role in the competition with private car. Intermodality is not an objective in itself but an instrument to achieve system integration. To increase its market share public transport should offer a level of fluidity equivalent to the one offered by private car, and for this network integration is one of the key factors. The paper demonstrates that the main requirements for successful system integration are: Regulatory harmonisation, assuring a transparent allocation of responsibilities and mission between modes and agents; Integrated management, assuring the achievement of the mobility policy goals through a product mix including public and private transport modes; Network articulation, offering effective economies of scale and scope to the users. (A)
Abstract