Long Distance Corridors Preliminary Analysis · Stefano Mainero (SINELEC) Filename: SERTIMIP2_LDC_IT_v1 Document Revisions Version Date Comments Check 0.0 1/11/02 Preliminary draft

TEMPO PROGRAMME 2002

SERTI MIP2 Activity 9.4

Long Distance Corridors Preliminary Analysis

Version 1.0 February 2003

Activity co-financed by the European Commission. DG TREN

Document History Date of Publication: February 2003 Authors: Roberto Nenzi (ITS Consultant) Annamaria Zaniboni (W.A.S. Consultant) Stefano Mainero (SINELEC) Filename:

SERTIMIP2_LDC_IT_v1

Document Revisions

Version Date Comments Check 0.0 1/11/02 Preliminary draft RN 0.1 10/11/02 Added tables and text RN 0.2 10/11/02 Added text AZ 0.3 18/12/02 Added text AZ, SM 0.4 05/01/03 Produced version 0.4 RN, AZ, SM 0.5 22/01/03 Version 0.5 – Draft of Final Report RN, AZ, SM 1.0 20/02/03 Version 1 - Release RN

Long Distance Corridors

Version 1.0

TABLE OF CONTENT 1. Introduction .................................................................................................................................1 2. Hypothesis of a LDC South of the Alps .....................................................................................1

2.1 Individuation of a LDC ...........................................................................................................1 2.2 Individuation of a LDC South of the Alps ...............................................................................3 2.3 Logo for the corridor South of the Alps ..................................................................................5

3. Users of a corridor.......................................................................................................................9 3.1 LDC Questionnaire .................................................................................................................9 3.2 Analysis of type of answers .....................................................................................................9

4. First results.................................................................................................................................10 5. Services along an LDC ..............................................................................................................10

5.1 LDC - Traffic & road information provision ........................................................................10 5.2 LDC - Services Provision......................................................................................................12 5.3 LDC - International agreements ...........................................................................................13

6. Connection with other LDC and intermodality......................................................................13 7. Prolongation/Connection with Corridor V .............................................................................14 8. Conclusions.................................................................................................................................16

INDEX OF FIGURES Fig. 1 - Graphic presentation of the LDC COSA.................................................................................6

Fig. 2 - Main railway lines in northern Italy corresponding to the LDC COSA..................................7

Fig. 3 - Logo for the LDC COrridor South of the Alps........................................................................8

INDEX OF TABLES Table 1 - Italian motorways in northern Italy with ADNU > 40000 vehicles/day...............................3

Table 2 - Motorways links with foreign countries ...............................................................................4

Table 3 - Intersection of the w-e corridors with n-s motorways ..........................................................4

Table 4 - Corridor V defined for infrastructures ................................................................................15

ANNEXES ANNEX 1 Background of Long Distance Corridors ANNEX 2 Survey on “Long Distance Corridors (LDC)” ANNEX 3 Overview on the intermodality potential of COSA corridor

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1. Introduction

Long Distance Corridors (LDC) are a primary objective of DG TREN in the field of the Euro-regional projects. LDCs date back to an old origin, but the present approaches to transportation, which are intermixed with communication, gave them a new shape. LDCs are now sometimes looked at as a backbone of ITS technologies and sometimes as a derivative of the same technologies. In the first case they are indicated as distances travelled by drivers and consequently they represent the space where ITS technologies have to be applied or have the best terrain for application. In the second case, the consideration is exactly the reverse: ITS technologies are spread all over the road space and then LDC (or more properly, the European road network) is the space where they operate.

As for the meaning, LDCs adhered to concepts developed along the time axis - no wonder they have meant different things in different situations (a review of the different concepts connected to LDC is reported in Annex 1).

To-day, LDCs are mainly concerned with roads, leaving the relationship road-rail to intermodality. The combination of these two aspects is part of this preliminary study, recalling back the original meaning of LDC (intermodality issue and LDC are indicated in Annex 3).

At the same time, different users are travelling along an LDC and this preliminary study has made a first attempt to survey the transport operators (survey and results are reported in Annex 2).

The Schengen Agreement abolished the stopping at border crossings between the Member States of the European Union, with the subsequent suppression of customs barriers. An European open space was created, where the road expression of the TEN-T (1), the Trans-European Road Network, received the status of road system for the whole of European Union. The Copenhagen EU summit has open the way for Eastern countries to become part of the Union.

The SERTI Euro-regional project in the TEMPO Programme has started in the second year of operation an analysis of what an LDC could mean in the area covered by the project. This report deals with the Italian portion of the analysis – it deals not only with North West Italy but in general it deals with the whole North Italy area (in order to provide a connection with similar work performed in the CORVETTE project and in order to examine a wide network). LDC by their very nature cannot be limited to short distances (limited sections of roads) but they have to span large areas and different countries. In a certain sense, a historical paragon could be made with roads of the Roman Empire – they crossed all Europe, these roads were not based on O/D transport matrixes but they were built to make transport more reliable. The strategy behind had been of making transportation and communication easy and controlled, both for military and political reasons.

This report aims to focus ideas on LDC first, then to dwell into the analysis of a factual “Corridor South of the Alps”, throughout the northern Italian territory, linked to corridors in France, to northbound corridors in Italy and to corridors in Eastern Countries, now in the programme of being members of the Union in a relatively short time.

2. Hypothesis of a LDC South of the Alps

2.1 Individuation of a LDC Dealing with the issue of a Long Distance Corridors, an analysis generally starts with the

estimation of the average distance travelled by drivers on the motorway system. Usually, these

1 Trans European Network- Transport

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values are of limited use. In Italy, and in other countries too, the average distance travelled by a driver on a motorway is in the range of 90 km. The use of this value would split the “long distance” characteristics of a corridor into really “short distance” sections, “chips”, where a “load breakdown” intervenes. As performed by other experts, analysis could start from a very selected group of users that travel long distances along the network, either for business or for tourism. The analysis will be too much influenced by requirements (or needs) of a small number of users or a limited number of days per year.

This study started with defining criteria for individuating a LDC and analysing requirements of LDC users. These requirements have been used to refine the approach taken, they have not been considered as the basis for LDC or as a necessary and only factor affecting LDC.

In this study, the approach chosen was to consider an itinerary where a large number of users is present. As a matter of fact we have considered their own “index of relevance” as the qualifying elements for the components of an LDCs, i.e. a number that could qualify the high interest in the stretch of motorway.

This approach can be synthesised as follows: � selection of stretches of roads (parts of TERN network) where high volumes of traffic are

involved � location of stretches of roads at the extremes of the corridor that act as links to other corridors

(here the index of relevance is based on the relevance of the linkage) � location of a railway network, alternative to the road one, with an itinerary lying close to it.

The last point is important, considering that for a long time corridors were defined (see Annex 1) by terms of parallel O/D itineraries where railway and road are competitors. Furthermore, as clearly indicated by the EC White Paper on Transport Policy (2) one the primary objective of the European transport policy is just to move a part of the transport of goods to railway (or other modes, where available).

As for the selection of road stretches, in this report, as an index of relevance, it was selected the value of “daily average effective vehicles”, the number of vehicles (no matter if cars or trucks) travel along the motorway. This number is the result of a collection of data along a year (easily obtained through toll procedures on toll motorways). It mixes both normal vehicles and transport vehicles, it smoothes the tourist seasonal transits and hides the days when heavy transport is not allowed. As an acronym, ADNU (Average Daily Number of Users) was selected.

Focus on services, not on road characteristics was the second aspect of this activity. Road infrastructures are handled and managed by different bodies and according to different regulations. In this case “focus on services” has been selected as field where the application of ITS technologies is a prerequisite for an efficient improvement of the traffic situation.

The authors have applied a rule: services are not for a single driver (i.e. the driver travelling 90 km) but for a multiplicity of drivers (whose travelling distances have different origins and destinations) – in this case homogeneity is the basic element for making the itinerary (the LDC) comfortable and safer for both short and long distance travellers. An LDC is an itinerary where ITS services will have a large potential market.

This approach is somewhat a way of combining the two existing approaches to ITS applications as reported at the beginning of this section.

2 CEC “White Paper – European Transport Policy for 2010: Time to Decide”, COM(2001) 370, 12/9/2001

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2.2 Individuation of a LDC South of the Alps The procedure indicated above has been applied to individuate a LDC South of the Alps. As a

value of the index the author, as numerical value of the index of relevance, have selected the value 40.000 vehicles per day – it could be criticised as a quite arbitrary value. The importance of the index is that it is enough representative of a continuos chain of road segments with a high volume of traffic. The criterion justifies the appurtenance of the road segment to a specified long distance corridor.

Applying this index to the Northern Italy motorways, the results are tabled in Table 1. Data were obtained from official documents3 and represent values collected during the 2001 year.

Code Motorway 2001 ADNU A6 Torino - Savona 43.975

A26 Voltri – Gravellona Toce (1) 55.977 A26 Voltri – Gravellona Toce (2) 64.058 A7 Milano - Serravalle 84.402 A7 Genova - Serravalle 131.063 A1 Milano - Bologna 219.270

A13 Bologna - Padova 105.613 A4 Torino - Milano 103.280 A4 Brescia - Padova 254.611 A4 Padova - Mestre 91.008

A4 – A28 Mestre – Trieste (3) 203.676 A27 Mestre - Belluno 48.956 A21 Torino - Piacenza 87.244 A21 Piacenza - Brescia 55.400 A10 Ventimiglia - Savona 68.375 A10 Savona - Genova 138.839 A12 Genova Sestri L. 98.122

(1) Section Voltri – Alessandria and connection with A7 (2) Section Alessandria – Gravellona T. and connection with Santhià (3) With prolongation to Udine and Gorizia

Table 1 - Italian motorways in northern Italy with ADNU > 40000 vehicles/day

As it is normally known, the cross-border traffic volumes have a lower values than those

involved within a single country, where redistribution of goods has a large part of the traffic. In dealing with LDC is important to individuate links with bordering countries, in order to accentuate the inter-operability of an European space. In this case the individuation of these links is relatively easy. On the western side, the three major Alps crossing links are the Ventimiglia (coast side) and Frejus and Mont Blanc Tunnels. For Switzerland we have the Saint Bernard tunnel. On the eastern side we have the Tarvisio crossing to Austria - Slovenia and the Trieste crossing towards Slovenia and other Eastern countries. Adding these links, the situation is apt for at least making a preliminary analysis of this corridor.

3 AISCAT – Informazioni, n. 3-4/2001

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Code Motorway 2001 ADNU T1 Mont Blanc Tunnel N.A. T2 Saint Bernard Tunnel 2.225 T4 Frejus Tunnel 7.317 A5 Sarre – Mt. Blanc Tunnel 4.796

A32 Torino Bardonecchia 25.919 A5 Quincinetto - Aosta 26.016 A5 Torino - Quincinetto 36.606

A23 Udine - Tarvisio 29.765

Table 2 - Motorways links with foreign countries

Furthermore, the West-East itinerary crosses two important South-North itineraries, in Milano and in Verona.

Code Motorway 2001 ADNU A8 - A9 Milano - Chiasso 263.877

A22 Brennero - Verona 98.763

Table 3 - Intersection of the w-e corridors with n-s motorways

The graphic representation of the LDC (the acronym COSA, COrridor South of the Alps, has

been adopted) is in Figure 1. In this figure the cross-border links have been added. It may be noted that this corridor is connected:

� to other corridors (North-South corridors Italy-Switzerland and Italy-Austria-Germany)

� to a corridor being in infrastructural development in eastern countries (Corridor V) � to sea routes (terminals in Genova and North Thyrrenian coast and in Trieste and

North Adriatic coast) � to air routes (terminals in Milano)

At the same we have also made a graphic presentation of the railway network in the same area. Taking into account the major railway links, it can be easily observed the strong correspondence between the COSA corridor and the railway links. While in this preliminary study, the analysis of this part of the corridor has not been made, it has been left to a future development of the activity to deepen the subject.

In summary, the design pursued by transportation strategies is a “comb” structure, where connection lines are jointed onto the northern plain mainstream line.

In addition to all cross-border links cited in Fig. 1 [namely Ventimiglia, Frejus, Monte Bianco (all I-F), Chiasso (I-CH), Brennero, Tarvisio (all I-A)], other minor links lay on the way onto neighbouring countries. They feature low volume traffic flows, are quite difficult at being used all the year round and the roads to access them are quite poor or winding too.

These minor connections are: • Maddalena/Larche (I-F) • Colle di Tenda (I-F) • Monginevro/Montgenèvre (I-F) • Moncenisio (I-F) • Piccolo San Bernardo (I-F)

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• Passo del Sempione (I-CH) • Passo dello Spluga/Splügen (I-CH) • Chiavenna/Castasegna (I-CH) • Prato alla Drava/Winnebach (I-A) • M.te Croce Carnico/Plöckenpass (I-A) • Gorizia (I-SLO) • Trieste/Fernetti (I-SLO)

These minor links could be considered in future studies of the LDC.

2.3 Logo for the corridor South of the Alps In order to create a symbol for corridors under evaluation, the writers of this document have

selected a logo for LDC and a name for the specific corridor in evaluation. As indicated, the name is COSA, COrridor South of the Alps. The name will recollect some souvenirs in people with a background on history of mathematics4. The logo is presented in Fig. 3. The letters inside the green square are the acronym of this specific corridor.

The colours (yellow and green) have been selected because corresponding to the colours of an analogous logo for the US Corridors (now part of a large infrastructure plan in the USA).

As a by-product of this analysis, the authors recommend it as a logo for the European LDCs.

As a way of quickly identifying the meaning of the logo, it ha been selected for insertion of the cover page of this document.

4 “Cossists”, from the Italian word “cosa” (thing), were mathematicians of the sixteenth century. They were concerned with solving equations for an unknown cosa (now we call it “x”). “The cossists were people such as Luca Pacioli (1445-1514), Gerolamo Cardano (1501-1576), Niccolò Tartaglia (1500-1557) and others who competed with each other as problem-solvers in the service of merchants and traders”. (Amir D. Aczel, “Fermat’s Last Theorem”, Four Walls Eight Windows, New York/London, page 41)

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Fig. 1 - Graphic presentation of the L

DC

CO

SA

Ventim

iglia

Frejus

Mont B

lanc

St. Bernard

Savona

Torino Genova

Aosta

Piacenza

Milano

Brescia

Verona

Sea Routes

Sea Routes

Trieste

Udine

Venezia

Bologna

Tarvisio

CH

CH

A, D

A, SLO

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Fig. 2 - Main railw

ay lines in northern Italy corresponding to the LD

C C

OSA

Ventim

iglia

Frejus A

lessandria

Savona

Torino

Genova

Padova

Milano

Vercelli

Verona

Sea Routes

Sea Routes

Trieste

Udine

Venezia

Bologna

Tarvisio

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Fig. 3 - Logo for the LDC

CO

rridor South of the Alps

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3. Users of a corridor The first step in analysing the services of favourable acceptance or of desirability has been to

make a preliminary survey among organisations that, as primary scope of their job, require moving along large distances. The survey, even if limited in scope and in time, had to review some trend analysis in order to make clear what ITS could contribute to an economic attractiveness.

3.1 LDC Questionnaire

The process of creating a LDC Survey related to the Italian environment of transports involved a pretty hard job as the requirement of collecting the highest amount of information had to meet the need of having a light and synthetic tool in order not to bore the interviewed companies.

Target of this survey was focused on hauliers and bus-lines companies covering international long-distance routes. In Annex 2 the reader can find the survey structure.

To operate a selection among different existing companies the following methods were chosen:

• Hauliers companies: extensive use of transport organisations website was carried out where the keyword “internazionale” (= international) was input. Among the output obtained only the companies having an efficient website were chosen

• International bus lines operators: choice was not difficult as in Italy there are not many of them. As a matter of facts, the majority of international long-distance routes connecting several Italian cities with all Europe are operated by the “Eurolines” company (www.eurolines.it) whose headquarters are located in Florence

The final sample collection consists of 37 companies, of which 2 are bus-lines ones.

3.2 Analysis of type of answers In the process of handling the survey, it become clear that, in the limited scope of this report,

there is a certain difficulty in the individuation of real needs faced by companies travelling along international links. Also, it is difficult to collect data about which corridors are considered preferential corridors and which problems/benefits these corridors present.

In any case, it has to be noted that those organisations that have provided answers informed that they are receiving traffic and road information through radio broadcasts; further, they are favourable in utilising an “ad hoc” professional service.

After analysing all the contacts had with the several companies interviewed, it is necessary to say that in some cases companies were busy handling the economic side of their work and this task a waste of time (!!). Therefore, it required an relatively large amount of time to identify the most common needs that international long-distance-routes companies have got as well as which international corridors they mainly use and which benefits/problems they have.

On one hand, the majority of the contacted companies showed no interest in general infomobility services (including the LDC topic) and even only 2 pages to be filled in were too much work for them.

On the other hand, those who answered the survey currently use radio programmes to be informed about traffic & viability information and they showed a marked interest in having the opportunity of high-level infomobility services.

The feeling perceived is that the Italian hauliers do their job according to their daily experience without asking themselves the question whether there are innovative services in order to

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improve their whole job organisation.

The survey required three months in the preparation of the questionnaire, in locating the organisations to which the questionnaire could be sent, in analysing the answers and contacting the organisation that did not provide a written answer.

Annex 2 presents in detail the analysis of answers and the results of this limited survey.

4. First results The results of this preliminary analysis are in line with the report hypothesis:

- an LDC is not represented by a high number of long distance trips, but by a high number of drivers present all along the itinerary;

- users performing long distance trips are limited and pertaining to specific categories (lorry companies and passenger coach companies);

and as a consequence:

- a LDC is a chain of roads characterised where high volumes of traffic are present;

- a high market potential for services is available for the introduction of services.

The last consideration is based on the fact that the normal users travelling 100 km have Origin and Destination distributed along the LDC. The result is:

- services, in order to be effective and commercially profitable, have to be continuous, homogeneous and, at least, interoperable

- services have to be available along the whole itinerary.

The characterisation of an LDC should be based essentially on services. User requirements then should come from the set of users – a certain “fitting curve” could be applied over long distances, in the sense that users requirements in Hungary can be somewhat different from those in France, in the present time. Service requirements should be a focal point.

5. Services along an LDC LDC-tailored services can be classified as follows:

• LDC - Traffic and road information provision

• LDC - Service provision

• LDC - International agreements

5.1 LDC - Traffic & road information provision The applications which have relevance for LDC are summarised in this section.

• Monitoring quality Supplying LDC travellers with reliable Traffic&Viability info could be performed by means

of a good quality of road monitoring. This means that along main Long Distance Corridors a dense network of different kind of sensors (monitoring traffic, meteo, videocameras, etc.) should be carried out in order to receive such amount of data as to reduce as much as possible interpolation and approximation actions.

To do so, it is necessary to have consistent data able to provide the same kind of information across different countries

• Traffic & Road information

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This issue is very important in the LDC environment both at cross-border areas and within each single country. Topic aspect is represented by the way of supplying information that could be performed by:

• cellular phones: GSM (SMS: push or pull option; WAP); UMTS

• Variable Message Signs disseminated along motorways

• Internet traffic websites With regards to cellphones, it is necessary that GSM telephony companies (at least the main

ones) of different countries sign an additional annex to the normal roaming agreement in order to have a continuity of traffic info service.

To make the service useful and reliable traffic&viability data must be provided by certified organisation along the corridors (such as those ones already involved in the Euro-Regional projects)

• Radio broadcasting - RDS-TMC The coverage of RDS service should be seamless to ensure maximum performance.

To improve current situation, radio programmes supplying traffic&viability info should be broadcast on the same frequency along all Europe (for instance at present in Italy traffic info is on 103.3 MHz while in France it’s on 107.7 MHz). The language barrier will obviously not overcome, it would be interesting to have the broadcast in two languages in the bordering sections of the LDC.

• VMS Continuity When travelling across different countries it is convenient to find road signs that could be

promptly understood without language problems.

The most effective way to realise that is to create VMS including both pictograms and text messages. A common grammar for text messages should be agreed upon. Pictograms should be based on the Vienna Convention graphical sign plus any other European agreement on specific signs. Text could be written in the two languages of the bordering countries (when different), in the sane message or in alternate messages. It is well known that the number of characters in the message cannot exceed an upper limit, given by the dimension of the VMS and the reading capability of drivers travelling at a motorway speed. The pictogram would be the universal language and a group of signs commonly accepted and implemented all through the LDC should be agreed.

It would also be necessary to create a Working Group that studies how to homogenise law enforcement existing in different countries (it is recommendable to take into account the new-entry countries too.

• Satellite Localisation (GPS, GALILEO) Analysing GPS-based localisation services already existing (tracking,

anti-theft, fleet management, …) and comparing technical characteristics between the GPS and Galileo systems, it is possible to enrich the kinds of satellite-based services offered. Essential is the realisation of dual-mode GPS receivers able to detect Galileo signals too.

The localisation features can also be provided by UMTS mobile phones network but at the moment is quite difficult to envisage this use because UMTS has been having a difficult start-up. Moreover, EU-new-entry countries will have additional problems about deploying this new technology on large scale.

In line with what the Automobile associations are developing for their subscribers, these services are a to be analysed as required on a LDC.

• Medical assistance

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Travelling long-distance routes also means to incur accidents and/or health problems. That’s why agreements among different medical assistance organisation would be useful

• Breakdown service and Repair Shops network During trips vehicles might break down so it is important to supply a network of breakdown

service + repair shops that travellers can reach by calling a LDC Call Centre

• Hotels and tourist facilities It would be helpful to sign agreements with some single hotels or hotel chains so that LDC

travellers can know what they find along their trip or can be addressed to by calling a LDC call centre

5.2 LDC - Services Provision The technologies for delivering the services are in constant evolution. The first results

indicate these technologies:

• Wireless continuity To supply any kind of LDC service it is essential to ensure a satisfactory level of wireless

coverage along LDC corridors. Many items of info can be received by mobile devices such as mobile phones, PDA, Pocket PCs.

Other items of info can be supplied only after localising the client and performing data communication through GSM network.

• LDC Call Centre The creation of a LDC Call Centre would provide an efficient service to LDC travellers. It

should be characterised by a toll-free number and possibly being the same in all countries (such as 00800xxxxxxx). It should be operational 24 hours/day for 7 days/week and provide 4-spoken language service.

Phoning this Call Centre LDC travellers could find help/advises about different fields such as:

• Traffic&Viability info (Automatic Responder only)

• Medical Assistance

• Breakdown Service

• Repair Shops network

• Hotels and tourist facilities

• Traffic & Viability Info (Automatic Responder Only) Travellers without cellphone (not equipped with or with phone battery off) could contact the

call centre and obtain traffic&viability info by means of an Automatic Responder whose technology could be based on either Interactive Voice Recognition (IVR) or predefined menu.

Both the systems require platforms in at least 5 languages (English, Italian, French, Spanish, German).

On one hand the IVR system is user-friendly (the traveller can answer proposed questions similar to a normal conversation). On the other hand IVR not always recognises words properly and this could cause problems in retrieving the requested item of information.

The other solution is widely used in many call centres: during the phone call some menus are presented and by pressing different buttons the user enters a tree-menu that leads to the requested items of info.

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Positive aspect of this technology is the high-level of request understanding whereas it could present some problems to the traveller that, while deepening the menu, in the end he could get lost in his procedure of info searching.

5.3 LDC - International agreements LDC by their very definition cross different countries. It is evident that the continuity of

services will be require agreements or international co-operation in implementations. Some peculiar aspects need to be taken into consideration, when referring to transport companies.

• Possibility of getting international permits for exceptional transports As far as international transports companies are concerned, often the necessity of transporting

extra-size goods arises and special permits have to be asked to the different motorways where lorries travel through.

Value Added Service would be the creation of a system that allow transports companies to book all the needed permits along the international route to be travelled. This could improve transports companies travel planning as well as motorways traffic management

• International centre for the missing toll payment management This service would be addressed more to motorways companies than to specific travellers.

European motorways complain about missing toll payments performed by foreign vehicles (particularly the HGVs) and the procedures for identifying transgressors are pretty long and complicated.

To ease this it could be useful to create an “ad-hoc” International Centre that all subjects who need this kind of information may contact (by calling/writing mails/sending e-mails) to reduce their economic losses.

6. Connection with other LDC and intermodality The international integration of the Italian infrastructural and logistic system in the European

dimension is mainly aligned along the North-South orientation. This study has identified a West-East corridor, indicating high traffic flows interesting a West-East orientation. This orientation has been the basis for this study and it has been validated by a number of data. Furthermore it is oriented towards Eastern countries. The COSA LDC intersects North-South corridors and provides the link between these corridors – the COSA LDC is the complementing element of a grid of LDCs.

As indicated in Fig. 1, the COSA LDC crosses two main corridors:

• the Milano-Como-Chiasso Italy-Switzerland and beyond corridor

• the Verona-Brenner Italy-Austria-Germany and beyond corridor At the same time, it is the end point of sea routes arriving in Genova (and related ports in the

North Thyrrenian coast) and in Trieste (and related ports in the North Adriatic coast).

Genova, Milano and Verona are further points where railway lines are one of the basis for the rail transport, both of merchandise and passengers.

Milano is also a start-end point of air transport routes.

In the end, the COSA corridor has a very special connecting nature that will be of value to explore in the near future.

An interesting point to evaluate is tied to the quantity of traffic affecting the cross-border Italian links.

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Saturation of Alpine crossings between Italy and cross-border countries is getting emblematic. In the 1992-2001 period, heavy goods flows grew by 32.7% (49.5% for road, 7.8% for rail). Freight transportation to Austria grew by 68.4%, to Switzerland by 37.8%, to France by 26.1% and to Slovenia by 17.3%. Road transportation grew by a modest 29.1% to France showing a remarkable and dramatic increase to Switzerland (103.9%), Austria (95.9%) and Slovenia (78.6%). Here some data:

• in 2001, freight flows totalled 140 Mil tons (+60% for roads). • of this flow, 33% was westbound (Frejus/Modane, Ventimiglia), 50% northbound (S.

Gottardo, Sempione and Brennero) and less than 20% Eastern- and North-eastbound (Tarvisio, Gorizia, Fernetti).

• 80% of road flows move through Frejus (26%), Brennero (26%), Tarvisio (15%) and Ventimiglia (14%)

According to EU and national transport policies, intermodal transport should be a European-wide transport system which contributes to the Union’s cohesion and accessibility. This also holds for the quality requirements of intermodal clients. They will only adapt their logistic systems to the intermodal world if it provides adequate access to all major destinations. However, intermodal transport is geographically fragmented as a result of spatial factors and national monopoly companies, of configuration and size of national territories, whilst at the same time bottlenecks have played a large part in determining the development of intermodality.

The COSA corridor, as defined in this study, is apt to being also considered as an intermodal corridor (as exemplified by Fig. 1 and Fig. 2), taking into account the transport strategies of the EC (see Annex 3 for consideration of the development of intermodality and the place of COSA in the scenario).

At this point it is important to note that the COSA LDC, at its eastern termination, connects with Corridor V, one of the Corridors being defined by the ECMT (European Conference of Ministries of Transport) as a requirement of infrastructure development.

7. Prolongation/Connection with Corridor V The Trans-European networks were initially proposed in 1992 and officially agreed in 1996.

The Trans European Road Network was accompanied by a Trans European Railway network and an Internal Navigation Network. While these networks were defined at the interior of the European Union, the problem was also raised concerning the Eastern Countries. The pan-European Conferences of Transport Ministers in Crete (1994) and Helsinki (1997) defined 10 multimodal corridors connecting as a liaison of the infrastructure of countries in Central and Eastern Europe, in line for access to the EU (Documents have been produces by the ECMT organisation, European Conference of Ministries of Transport).

A revision of these corridors is in progress. In any case they were defined starting from an infrastructure point of view, as analysis of infrastructure improvements in order to bring them the same standard of the European roads system.

In a recent ECMT presentation, dedicated to combined transport, the indications have been:

“Most European international transport flows cover a greater distance than national ones. This is again advantageous for combined transport. Normally, a transport distance of 300 - 500 km is assumed to be the minimum for combined transport competitiveness. Some European countries have only few – if any - national high volume corridors that cover such distances. So, again international European transport gives the main advantage for combined transport, in this case the increased distance. However international transport also incurs some flows that are considerable short and do not qualify for a combined transport operation.

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The East West European corridor is today not very much developed. But all countries concerned have given great hope to combined transport for the solution of some serious traffic problems that today restrict the transport quality on this corridor seriously. Especially very long border control delay and heavy congestion on transit roads that have been designed and built in an area when such development could not be foreseen create problems in this corridor.

Combined transport has to offer similar quality patterns as road transport to be able to meet the competition of door to door transport by road. This regards such factors as flexibility, speed and reliability.”5

The corridor which has a connection with this preliminary study of the COSA corridor is the Corridor V, whose definition is as follows:

Road; rail. Total length: 1.600 km Venice Trieste Italy

Kopar Ljubljiana Maribor

Slovenia

Budapest Hungary Uzgorod Lvov Kiev

Ukraine

Bratislava Zilina Kosice

Slovak Republic

Rijeka Zagreb Osijek

Croatia

Ploce Sarajevo Bosnia-Herzegovina

Table 4 - Corridor V defined for infrastructures

Westwards, Corridor V links to the axis Venice-Turin-France-Barcelona-Saragoza-Madrid-

Lisboa. As the Countries to the south of Slovenia will not enter Europe in 2004, Corridor V, in its Slovenia-Hungary tract, is the only way linking Italy to new Member Countries, and to Kiev, one of the gates to Russia, China and East Europe.

A basic reason for this indication is that corridors in the ECMT analysis have been individuated according to infrastructure improvement/development for improving the combined transport situation. In many cases these considerations have been connected by local authorities to ITS developments. It should be avoided the realisation or improvement of infrastructure without considering the introduction of ITS technologies. This happened in western Europe where the implementation of ITS has to face the existing road infrastructure (and underlying organisational structure). While an analysis of these situations is outside the scope of this activity, the authors think that it should be pursued.

5 M. S. Fauvez “ECMT Activities and Guidelines on Future Actions for the development of Combined Transport in CEECs”, May 2000

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8. Conclusions The present study had two purposes:

• to individuate a Long Distance Corridors (LDC) crossing the country from one cross-border link to the opposite one

• to delineate a parameter usable for the inclusion of roads in the LDC

• the review and (to a limited extent) define which ITS applications would be advantageous in the LDC

• to check how this LDC will part of a multi-LDC grid. The net result has been the definition of the COSA (COrridor South of the Alps) LDC. The

only items that could be used on such a long itinerary are ITS services, which have to exhibit the now classical features of:

• homogeneity

• continuity

• interoperability and

• availability. The parameter through which identify a LDC has been proposed and used. The main

characteristics of an LDC has been the volume of traffic flows that should exhibit a continuity (within upper and lower limits) of traffic volumes.

The unifying element of a LDC is the availability of ITS services, mainly dedicated to information and assistance to drivers. Drivers, no matter if they are driving a short distance and no matter which section of the LDC, no matter if they are travelling most of the LDC, should feel in the same environment, both for comfort and safety.

As a preliminary conclusion it is proposed:

• dealing with very long road itineraries it is important to follow recommendation of public-private partnership or at a lower scale of public and private partners presence in the definition of the solution;

• the Galileo project will by its very nature a large scale service; somehow has to be taken into account;

• the multimodality or intermodality aspects are a prerequisite for further developments and connection with other means of transport should be considered.

While the western and northern parts of the COSA are part of European projects like SERTI and CORVETTE, where the indicated features are the basic principle of operation, the eastern part is linked to new EU member states. They will join in the future and they will take time to accommodate to the EU situation in rules.

One important issue to underline a conclusion is related to the situation in which Eastern countries are developing/improving their own infrastructures.

One conclusion of this preliminary report is that these countries should develop/improve the infrastructure taking into account the ITS services which will operate together with these infrastructures. This condition has been underlined in different occasions. Some Eastern countries now have fixed ideas on basing their initiative on updated technologies and then revamping the applications with the new technologies.

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The Eastern countries should profit from the progresses made in the EU. They should start from the new technologies, the new applications and develop the ITS concepts that should accompany the design or re-design of the infrastructure. These considerations should also have their base on the inter-modality concept.

Errors, once made in the EU, should not be replicated.