ECONOMICAL FEASIBILITY STUDY OF A PERSONAL AUTOMATED TRANSPORT FOR LEISURE, HOLIDAYS AND SPECIAL EVENTS

Non systematic travel demand for leisure, holidays and special events is usually non regular, after official hours and has dispersed origins and destinations. These characteristics do clearly favour the private car over conventional, collective public transport. A more sustainable mode of transport which could match these specific characteristics is called Personal Automated Transport (PAT). This fully automated transport system is based on small-size, electric vehicles that trasport individuals directly and non-stop from origin to a preselected destination on a dedicated network of slender, overhead or underground guide-ways. PAT offers a 24h on-demand service and allows passengers to travel without waiting times at stations or during transfers. In contrast with line-oriented services, PAT pursues a network approach, with the benefits that stations are placed closer to the user and traffic flows can be distributed over various links. The major questions are whether a PAT network has sufficient capacity and whether it is economically attractive for a particular implementation. For this reason a preliminary feasibility analyses has been performed for the city of Rimini, a popular Italian seaside resort, which is currently suffering from the traffic that is predominantly generated by leisure demand. During summer season, there is a high travel demand due to tourists who spend their holidays at the Adriatic sea. During shorter time intervals a considerable traffic is generated by the numerous conferences held in Rimini. To date, transport demand in the urban area of Rimini is mostly absorbed by road transport. The resulting congestion, noise, pollution and accidents produced clearly jeopardises the attractiveness of Rimini. The need for a sustainable transport network, which can adequately serve fluctuating demand, seems to offer good conditions for the implementation of a Personal Automated Transport (PAT) system. The present study aims at significantly reducing public parking-space in a zone along the beach. A bidirectional PAT service is investigated that begins at a Park&Ride (P&R) infrastructure near the motorway exit south-west of Rimini, passes by the conference center and the railway station and finally distributes clients to the numerous hotels along the beach. The relevant travel demand is made up of the following components. First, tourists who arrive by car at the P&R and use PAT to reach one of the 2000 hotels located in Rimini. Second, one-day tourists from nearby cities, who do not reserve a hotel room but would use the PAT network to travel from the P&R to their favorite beach. Third, tourists from abroad and Italy, who arrive at the train station and travel to their hotel (current taxi is approximately 7€). Finally, conference attendees, who arrive and commute between hotel and conference site. In this study, the capacities are studied by means of micro-simulations. Moreover, the preliminary economic analysis provides also encouraging results, indicating that PAT may indeed provide the visitors of Rimini with a high-quality service, despite the unusual pattern of transport demand.