Personal Rapid Transit : a self financing solution for tourist transport at the city of Rimini

One of the most significant properties of Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) is that a dense, arbitrarily shaped network can offer a direct transit between all origins and destinations within the covered area. Due to off-line stations all trips are non-stop. Vehicles are light-weight, electrically driven and with seats for 4-6 passengers travelling together by choice (Fig. 1). In contrast with line-oriented services, this network approach has the benefits that stations can be placed closer to the user and that traffic flows can be distributed on the various links such that capacity requirements are less stringent. However, the first PRT networks are likely to consist of single lines or small networks and will only successively be extended to larger networks. Consequently, PRT services must start without the aforementioned network benefits. This fact puts some serious constraints on the choice of initial PRT lines, in particular in absence of public financing: the potential customer should accept high ticket prices for a high service quality; the average trip length will be below 3 km; no competing, subsidized public transport service should be present; travel demand should generate traffic flows below capacity limits but ideally constant throughout the day. The case of Rimini (Italy), which is presented in this paper, may offer good conditions for an initial PRT network. Currently, the attractiveness of Rimini as seaside resort and conference site is jeopardized by a high level of car traffic: the city centre is located between the main generators to the west (two motorway-exits, the national road n. 16 and a conference hall) and the main destinations to the east (more than 2000 hotels, restaurants, bars and amusement centres concentrated on a small corridor along the coastal line). The objective of this study, which has been conducted on behalf of the Province of Rimini, is to find an economically viable solution that would allow a significant reduction of car-traffic through some central parts of the city as well as a reduction of public parking-space in a dedicated zone along the beach (this space could be used, for instance, to create new cycle tracks and parks). In particular, we investigate a solution proposing a high-quality PRT transport service for tourists and visitors between the motorway exit and the conference centre (south west by the city centre) with the beach area, ho-tels and restaurants (to the east of the centre). The envisaged solution requires the implementation of the following measures: • the dedicated area at the beach that is covered by the PRT network would be closed to car traffic for non-residential users; • there will be no subsidized bus-line from the motorway exit to the beach area; • the cost of a one-way ticket with PRT is below the cost of a taxi ride (approximately 10 €); • the cost of a return ticket with PRT includes parking at a park-and-ride node (P&R). Clearly, the consequence would be that all visitors or tourists who want to make business or holidays in the dedicated beach area will have access only trough the PRT network, except bikes, taxis and busses. We are fully aware that this solutions would require a series of difficult political decisions. In particular, the daily tourists as well as visitors during night-time would face an increase in costs compared with the current costs for parking (1 € per hour). It is assumed that the increase in life-quality within the PRT covered area will at least outweigh the increase in travel costs such that the total number of visitors will not decline due to the costs of a PRT ticket. Therefore, we performed our initial demand estimations on data from year 2008. From this base scenario we made different hypothesis on potential increases and studied the impact on costs and transport service-level. Further market analyses are required to better understand the expected changes of visitor types: the share of visitors who are ready to spend more ...