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In this paper, an analysis of the development of Deep Sea Shipping (DSS) and Short Sea Shipping (SSS) container routes calling at Italian ports, is carried out. Data about DSS routes have been collected in the years: 2011, 2014, 2018 and 2019, while data about SSS services have been collected in 2010 and 2018. Italian ports have been classified as follows: Ligurian multi-port gateway cluster, formed by Leghorn, La Spezia, Genoa, Savona/Vado Ligure; Northern Adriatic multi-port gateway cluster, made up of Ancona, Ravenna, Venice and Trieste; Campanian multi-port gateway cluster, composed of Naples and Salerno; hub ports, i.e. Gioia Tauro, Cagliari (only until 2018) and Taranto (only until 2014). The most important gateway cluster, for both DSS and SSS services, is the Ligurian one, which includes Genoa, the major Italian container gateway port. Genoa has shown an almost constant increase in container traffic in the time period analyzed. Italian hub ports are also an important group, but they have registered a negative trend in the years under analysis. DSS routes, to Far East and the American Continent, usually call at the Ligurian ports and the hub port of Gioia Tauro. Northern Adriatic ports are crossed by only a few DSS routes, but they are crossed by a large number of SSS routes, especially feeder ones, with transshipment mainly in the hub ports of Gioia Tauro, Marsaxlokk, Piraeus and Port Said. The evolution of DSS services shows clearly the effects of naval gigantism phenomenon: the number of DSS services has decreased, but the total and, especially, the average DWT have increased. As regards SSS routes, also their frequencies have decreased, but their length and, in particular, the number of ports called, have increased: this choice is performed by container operators in order to increase the ships ’load factor’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the usage of railway lines across the Alps is evaluated, both at present and after the new lines and base tunnels will be in operation. The railway network of a large part of Europe has been modelled through a graph, and the best routes between some of the most important origin/destination pairs in Italy and Europe have been determined. A new cost function has been developed for the links of the network. The proposed cost function is an improvement of those existing in the literature, because all cost components are taken into account in detail, while the traction cost and the number of locomotives utilized explicitly depend on the geometrical characteristics of rail lines. This last aspect is crucial in analyzing the rail lines across the Alps, as they are often operated in double or triple traction. The results of the study show the importance of new Alpine rail lines and base tunnels: the Ceneri base tunnel will remove a bottleneck on the Gotthard line, while the Brenner and Frejus base tunnels will take up a quota of demand currently served by other lines. Moreover, the new Alpine lines will create an east–west rail connection, through the Italian Padan Plain, alternative to the rail route which currently bypasses the Alps to the north. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to examine the rule compliance behavior of pedestrians at signalized intersections located in two different urban contexts in Italy, a tourist context and a typical working urban context, and to highlight if there is any influence, of the specific urban context, on the non-compliance behavior of pedestrians. Digital video camera images are gathered in two different urban contexts and data are processed using automated software, self-written in MatLab. Both test places are located in Tuscany (Italy) and they are only 20 km apart. The tourist, or recreational, context is the beach town of Viareggio. The typical working, or commuter, urban context is the historical city of Lucca. Factors such as age, sex and group size are analyzed. Pearson's chi-square test has been applied to investigate whether the difference between observed values and expected values of variables is statistically significant. The average crossing speed in tourists is found to be 1.50 m/s and the average 15th percentile is 1.09 m/s, whereas in commuters, the average crossing speed is found to be 1.78 m/s and the average 15th percentile is 1.42 m/s. The obtained results highlight that pedestrians in a tourist urban context are generally more compliant to traffic lights than in a commuter urban context. Moreover, the results point out that pedestrian behavior is highly linked to the urban context, and the obtained results of this exploratory study on pedestrians, in a recreational context as compared to a working one, raise some interesting questions that deserve further research work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the potential hinterland of the new container terminal of the port of Leghorn (Livorno in Italian) is studied. The study actually analyses the competitiveness of major European ports with respect to some of the most contestable regions in Europe. Travel time and monetary costs of railway paths, connecting ports to their hinterland, have been determined. The rail network of a large part of Europe was modelled using a graph. To each link, which represents a portion of the rail line, a cost function is associated. The travel time on the link is determined from the average speed, which has been determined from the maximum speed via formulae obtained through linear regression. The few cost functions that exist in current literature for the computation of the cost of a rail link are not detailed enough. Therefore, a new cost function has been developed. All cost components were determined in detail: the staff cost, the amortisation, maintenance, and insurance costs of locomotives and wagons, the cost of the usage of rail track, the traction cost. The traction cost was calculated in detail from all resistances to motion. Moreover, for each rail link, the number of locomotives needed to operate the train and the maximum towable weight were determined. The monetary value of time in freight transport registers a high variability; therefore, three different optimisations of the paths—by travel times, monetary costs, and generalised costs—between each origin–destination pair were carried out. The rates of competitiveness of the ports with respect to the examined European contestable regions were analysed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, an analysis of deep sea shipping (DSS) container services, calling at Italian ports, is carried out. A comparison with analogous sets of data collected in the years 2011 and 2014 has been performed. The most important Italian port system is the Ligurian one, which includes the main Italian port, Genoa, which is the main access gate to the Padan Plain, the most productive area of Italy. However, other ports are also important: the Ligurian port of La Spezia and the hub port of Gioia Tauro. The comparison, with 2011 and 2014 data, has shown that while the number of DSS departures, from Italian ports, did not increase, the dimensions of the ships, which call at Italian ports, increased relevantly: this is in line with the current trend in container ship gigantism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the development of Motorways of the Sea (MoS) services offered at Italian ports from 2008 to 2015 is analyzed. In particular, a detailed research on MoS routes calling at Italian ports in the year 2015 is carried out; within MoS routes: ropax and only cargo ro-ro services are identified. MoS routes in the year 2015 are compared with those in the years 2008, 2010 and 2012. The study highlights two main aspects. First, the great majority of MoS routes in Italy are ro-pax ones: ro-ro routes are only 31% of the total, but ro-pax service frequencies are highly variable during the year, from high to low season. Second, due to the economic crisis, carriers are trying to operate services with high load factors and trying to find new markets: in fact, from 2008 to 2015, route frequencies have decreased, whereas the number of port calls in each route has increased. Finally, the capability of ro-ro and ro-pax routes of being competitive versus all-road transport has been analyzed. The analysis has shown that both ro-ro and ro-pax routes show relevant problems in terms of their competitiveness against all-road transport. Ro-pax routes are not reliable and ro-ro routes are not fast and frequent; thus, they both do not fulfill essential requirements for MoS services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An "island formation" is a region within the hinterland of a port which is served by another port. Some regions of southern Europe, although located within the hinterland of some Mediterranean ports, are "island formations" of northern range ports (namely, northern European ports between Le Havre and Hamburg): an example is the Padan Plain, in northern Italy, which is currently, although only partially, an "island formation" of northern range ports. Actually, a relevant number of TEUs, which have origin or destination in the Padan Plain, and have been unloaded from ships operating deep-sea routes or will be loaded on them, cross northern range ports. Several sources report this number of TEUs, but there is disagreement among them. In this paper, firstly, this number of TEUs is estimated, according to scheduled rail connections between northern range ports and Italian intermodal centres/freight villages. Afterwards, an analysis of transport costs and travel times is carried out in order to determine the advantage of unloading containers (having origin in the Far East or North America and destination in the Padan Plain) through northern range ports instead of Italian ports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]