Paola Tagliavini’s scientific contributions

In line with EU regulations, the Italian Government started the reform of public transport, aiming to liberalise and to privatise the public transport market and to transfer competence from central Government to Regions for railway networks and from Regions to Local Administrations for bus services. Beginning from 2001 each Local Administration will be called upon every three years to define or to update the strategies about its own bus network. In the Triennial Services Programme each Administration will have to redesign the bus services in order to answer the citizens needs in the best way and to split each network in different areas to set up tenders. This paper introduces the activities and tools that Poliedra developed to support the Lombardy Region in governing and in co-ordinating Local Administrations with Triennial Services Programmes tasks. The main activities are the definition of a common framework where Local Administrations can operate and the development of some software tools to support the analysis of the bus network and its critical situations. All the activities and software tools are supported by a quantitative methodology, based on the definition of some meaningful indicators which can be used to measure and to compare the different local situations and to quantify the targets Local Administrations have to achieve. Software tools, integrated within the Regional Information System for Local Public Transport Services (MISTRAL), support the redesign of the bus network in strong co-ordination with railways and also identifying potential low demand areas which could be better dealt with an innovative transport system.

In Lombardy in the last ten years, public subsidies to bus companies have increased, while the market share and quality of public transport have declined. Lombardy Region initiated a reform of public local transport to improve the effectiveness of the public transport through competition and economic incentives. The reform calls for tenders for a network divided into areas. In this paper a methodology developed to support the grantor both in the choice of the areas and the management of the tenders is described.

In line with EU regulations, the Italian Government has started the reform of public transport, transferring competencies from central Government to Regions for railway networks and from Regions to Local Administrations for bus services. The Local Administrations are therefore called to redesign the bus urban and inter-urban services. The targets are not only to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of public transportation, but also to improve all the quality issues related to mobility and to promote the environmental sustainability. This paper is focused on the methodological and software tools developed by Poliedra – Politecnico di Milano to support the Lombardy Region in defining a common framework where Local Administrations can operate and achieve their targets. The software tools are supported by a quantitative methodology. A set of meaningful indicators is defined, some of which are related to environmental and quality issues of public transport services, such as the vehicles kind and age, their emission levels in atmosphere, their suitability for disabled people, the total number of carried passengers, the accessibility to public facilities, the fitting of territorial mobility demand, the introduction of innovation services (e.g. services on demand) in low demand areas, which can be used to measure and to compare the different local situations. The whole software tools constitute the Regional Information System for Local Public Transport Services (MISTRAL). MISTRAL, that will be shared with Local Administrations, can help to monitor the transportation services contracts and to guarantee the respect of their quality standards, to evaluate the transport system through indicators and procedures and to provide support to decision processes in transport planning by methodologies based on multi-criteria analysis.