A new freight delivery system based on automated vans is presented. Vans travel in platoons, whose first vehicle is driven and the others are driverless, during large part of their delivery routes. Each platoon moves from the Urban Distribution Centre (UDC) to a dedicated location close to the city centre, where the platoon is split up. At the split up location, the driver gets off the first van and each van of the platoon, independently from the others, carries out the last part of its delivery route moving without any driver. Meanwhile, the driver moves to another split up location or to the UDC, where a driver is needed. After completing their deliveries, vans return to the same split up location and gather again in a platoon; a driver accesses the first vehicle, then the platoon returns to the UDC. A methodology to design the proposed transport system has been developed. The methodology comprises two routing algorithms to optimise: platoon routes from the UDC to split up locations; single van routes from split up locations to receivers and return; and a microsimulator to assess, heuristically, the number of vehicles needed to operate the system and the schedule of driver activities.

This paper deals with a new ITS system aimed at reducing road congestion and noise emissions on the urban roads leading to port terminals. This system is composed of: traffic video cameras, VMS panels and an app. These three components are connected and managed by an integrated ITS system management platform, called “LIST Port ITS System Central” in this paper. Video cameras measure traffic characteristics, such as flow rates, speed and composition of the vehicle stream and provide these data to the LIST Port ITS System Central. The central elaborates the data and provide the traffic flow characteristics to the app. The app calculates, in real time, the best route to/from port terminals, according to traffic congestion and noise emissions, and provides this information to the Central. Then, the app shows to the user the best route and the traffic and noise status in real time. The calculation of the best routes takes place according to the “physical capacity” and “acoustic capacity” of road infrastructures. Noise emissions are directly calculated from traffic characteristics by means of the CNOSSOS-EU model, and are after compared to the noise emission limit levels established by law. The services provided by the LIST Port ITS system are new, because, currently, routing strategies are usually based only on congestion, while noise pollution is almost always neglected. Noise pollution could be a more restrictive constraint because the “acoustic capacity” is often lower than the physical one.

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.

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.

In this paper, a new methodology for the assessment of the so-called “acoustic capacity” of a road infrastructure is proposed. This aspect is very important in the field of transportation planning as, currently, road infrastructures are verified only in terms of physical capacity; at most, the environmental capacity due to atmospheric pollutants is taken into account, while the acoustic capacity is completely neglected. The acoustic capacity is assessed based on the Harmonoise model, which is widely recognized at the European level. The Harmonoise model, starting from traffic data, such as traffic flows, average speed, and typologies of vehicles, provides the levels of noise emissions and immissions, which can be compared to the noise limit levels established by law. The validity of the proposed methodology was assessed on a test network. The results of this analysis show that, generally, the acoustic capacity is actually a capacity constraint, which involves several traffic flows: this occurs in particular in the case of an intersection, but also in the case of a bi-directional road. Furthermore, the acoustic capacity of a road infrastructure is generally lower than its physical capacity.