Sustainable mobility in park areas: the potential offered by guided transport systems

The project choices to design and manage a transport infrastructure system are extremely hard in thinly populated areas like, for instance, protected areas and mostly parks. In actual fact, the need for promotion and development of these areas, often characterized by large surfaces, contrasts with the necessity to preserve their inestimable natural value. The transportation demand in extremely sensible environmental contexts can be satisfied by providing incentives to use reduced-impact means of transport, regulating adequately the vehicle traffic flow and promoting the intermodality between private and public transport systems. Apart from performing their own traditional functions, these systems can become an effective aid to the valorization of protected areas and, sometimes, even a tourist attraction; this potential has especially been shown by some Guided Transport Systems which are already in operation in some Italian national parks. In the light of these experiences, in this paper we illustrate a case study on the improvement of mobility in a park area, showing a comparative analysis carried out among different modes of public transport and focusing on the potential transport, socioeconomic and environmental effects. Among the transport systems examined, some have been singled out because they are suited to be used in the short- to medium-term (like the purchase of a fleet of electric shuttle buses for residential users and tourists), in that they are complementary to the multiple actions aiming at promoting the socioeconomic growth of the territory; whereas others can be realized in the long term when the said growth emerges as a concrete reality. In this context, one of the public mass transport systems which most suits the needs of the park under study is the “rubber tyre tram” (TVR). This is because the tram carriages equipped with tyres generally guarantee very high kinematic performances, good compatibility with winding tracks with steep longitudinal slopes (even higher than 13%), no air pollutant emissions and very moderate acoustic emissions. Therefore, the primary goal of this paper is to examine the techno-economic feasibility and the environmental compatibility between the “rubber tyre tram” - a mode of transport generally used in urban areas - and the case of parks and areas protected for their natural and environmental value.