Fernando Montano

Travelling towards and from minor islands through non-conventional air transport: demand and cost analysis

This research addresses the role of innovative forms of passenger air transport in favouring the mobility of tourists visiting minor islands. In particular, we studied the feasibility of scheduled transport services using a helicopter and a seaplane for rapidly connecting Sicily in the south of Italy to the near and very attractive Eolie Islands. In order to estimate the potential service demand, we allowed for the number of tourists arriving in the Eolie Archipelago during the period 1999-2008. In detail, we considered only the market of visitors with a high willingness-to-pay for time savings (individuals choosing superior hotels) coming from origins at least 300 km away from the Eolie Islands. Furthermore, we excluded a quota of travellers not disposed to flying, determined on the basis of a previous study about air transport demand. We also considered as potential users of the proposed transport services a percentage of the Eolie Isles’ population that was set according to a recent study about the use of air transport by Sicilian residents. The resulting observations were employed to estimate forecasts through an ARIMA model. After a technical analysis to identify the types of helicopter and seaplane suited to implementing regular transport services, we performed a cost analysis concerning the proposed non-conventional air transport services (taking into account fixed, variable, trading and financial costs). In particular, based on the ARIMA model demand forecasts, we determined the service supply (daily frequency and number of aircrafts) in the different cases and evaluated the related total cost per passenger. At the final step, we compared the helicopter and seaplane options with the various existing transport alternatives that can be used to get to the Eolie Islands

Critical Features about Urban Pedestrian Crossings: A Case Study

This paper describes how the theme of safety for vulnerable road users (disabled, elderly, and children) in urban areas plays an important role for many implications in these users’ quality of life. The deficiency of safety on city streets is primarily due to the simultaneous presence of different components of traffic in an increasingly complex and inappropriate surrounding for their cohabitation. In urban areas the road intersections, which are crossed by different categories of traffic (motorized vehicles, pedestrians, non-motorized vehicles), represent a critical node, both in terms of quality of circulation and that of road safety. In recent years , 76% of accidents have occurred in the urban area, with 13% of accidents involving pedestrians of which 30% of accidents occurred near intersections. All these reasons explain the complexity in the planning of an intersection, particularly when vulnerable users are involved. This paper proposes an applicative study of pedestrian crossings, regulated by traffic lights, and what factors affect their planning and design in order to achieve an optimal quality of service and high safety standards. The study area involves one of the main streets of the city of Palermo, which links the city center and some of the suburbs. The paper focuses on the design of pedestrian crossings and their location in the urban context by using existing legislation in order to achieve an optimization of the number of pedestrian crossings, the distance between them, and traffic signal cycle. In particular, traffic engineers can design a possible new layout of pedestrian crossings, starting by analyzing the current configuration and its critical points and simulating different future scenarios that take into account the dual role of the street inside and outside the district and in the whole urban network.