Sustainable flexible transport services. A solution against social exclusion. (EU projects InMoSion...

Sustainable flexible transport services. A solution against social exclusion. (EU projects InMoSion & Flipper).

Dora Ramazzotti1, Athanasios Lois2

1SRM – Reti e Mobilità, Public Transport Authority of Bologna, Italy.2 Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Thessaly, Volos, Greece.

SIET 2010 – Rome 17th - 18th June 2010

SRM is the authority for mobility and public transport in the province of Bologna.The city of Bologna has 374.000 inhabitants, the province of Bologna has 944.000 inhabitants.Bologna public transport system:- 37,1 M km = 82 M Euro;- 113 M passengers = 48 M Euro;- 22.000 annual ticket holders;- 1.313 drivers; 1.039 buses; - 220 service lines.

On-demand existing services:- 1,2 M km per year- 140 K passengers per year

SIET 2010 – Rome 17th - 18th June 2010

“An individual is socially excluded if (a) he or she is geographically resident in a society and (b) he or she does not participate in the normal activities of citizens in that society”.

Burchard, T., et al.(2002), Degrees of Exclusion in John Hills et al. Understanding Social Exclusion, Oxford University Press.

SIET 2010 – Rome 17th - 18th June 2010

UITP: adapted from Ralph Hall, Introducing the Concept of Sustainable Transport.

Sustainability

SIET 2010 – Rome 17th - 18th June 2010

United Nations “Our Common Future” : concept of sustainable development. From that, “Sustainable transportation is about meeting or helping meet the mobility needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs”.

A necessary and complementary action to allow sustainability refers to the effort to reduce the impact of transportation in terms of environmental pollution and energy consumption increasing efficiency and efficacy through the transport demand management.

Sustainable transport

SIET 2010 – Rome 17th - 18th June 2010

“Action : prepare for the introduction of cooperative systems, to enable co-modal transport solutions and to connect peripheral regions and outermost regions with the mainland; ensure a balanced approach to land use planning.”

Keep Europe moving - Sustainable mobility for our continent - Mid-term review of the European Commission’s 2001 Transport White Paper

This EU-funded project has as overall aim to assist communities with development and deployment of customized transport system solutions for their local problems (University-based science shop).

This EU-funded project encourages experience exchange, best practices and profitable co-operation about FTS - Flexible Transport Services in relation to mobility in cities, rural areas and small towns.

EU actions

SIET 2010 – Rome 17th - 18th June 2010

a) alternative to regular public transport (traditional) in order to rationalise the use of the resources and consequently reduce pollution and the costs by adapting the service to the real needs of the users;

FTS are complementary to the conventional passenger transport:

b) integrated with regular transport service, fitting in a presumably higher quality range and guaranteeing furthermore an extra/distribution function to back-up the leading service.

Flexible transport

SIET 2010 – Rome 17th - 18th June 2010

Our approach

SIET 2010 – Rome 17th - 18th June 2010

Step 1 : service identification (survey, area, legal issues, existing transport);

The main phases to create a new flexible transport service are:

Step 6 : PTA contribution for the first year of service with own funds.

Step 5 : evaluation of service with qualitative and quantitative measurement including controls on operators’ activities;

Step 4 : IT platform availability;

Step 3 : service awarding, tender if needed, and contractual matter definition including: regulations, accessibility, fleet, fares, bonus-malus (quality);

Step 2 : service setting up defining network, fares, vehicles, timetables, quality standards, IT application;

SIET 2010 – Rome 17th - 18th June 2010

EvaluationEfficiency:Average number of passengers per vehicleAverage number of passengers-km per vehicleAverage operating speed (km/hour)Average percentage waiting timeAverage percentage of km with no passengers on boardCosts of intake, planning and dispatch per tripCosts of intake, planning and dispatch per trip related to operating costsPercentage overhead costs related to total costs

Efficacy:Number of passenger trip per yearNumber of passenger-kilometers per yearNumber of passenger trips per inhabitantNumber of passenger trips per person in a target group

Quality: Number of not satisfied requestsCustomer satisfaction (can be measured upon passengers feedback)Percentage trips in time/within quality parameters (measures with IT tools)

SIET 2010 – Rome 17th - 18th June 2010

The interested municipalities of the Bologna provincial area can ask for Authority’s support from the preliminary phases till evaluation. The availability of IT tool offer a huge amount of data to analyse.A contribution for the first year of service will be given. If the evaluation is positive, they can continue at their own expenses.

SRM, supported by its owners (Municipality and Province of Bologna), decided to assign specific contributions to pilot experiences of FTS. A dedicated fund of 125.000 Eur was created in 2007 and increased till more than half million Eur in 2009.

Public Transport Authority support

SIET 2010 – Rome 17th - 18th June 2010

Conclusions

SIET 2010 – Rome 17th - 18th June 2010

- Social exclusion is often due to a physical impossibility to take part in social life;

– Citizens that live in weak demand areas and disabled people have mobility needs that remain often unmet by existing transport service;– FTS is able to answer real needs and therefore offer increasing efficiency, efficacy and customer satisfaction;

– FTS are sustainable from economic and environmental point of view but especially taking into account non-monetary benefits they produce a positive return;

– The use of IT tools allows the management of the service granting optimization at all levels, better use of resources and costs reduction;– The support, also economic, of PTAs can strongly encourage the spread of flexible transport services that are a real step ahead in the fight against social exclusion.

thanks for your attention,

dora.ramazzotti@srmbologna.it

SIET 2010 – Rome 17th - 18th June 2010

SIET 2010 – Rome 17th - 18th June 2010