Sistemi di trasporto pubblico urbano via mare. Un modo per rilanciare il waterfront di Palermo

New sea transport terminals can be major people movers and main centres for various urban activities and functions, determining strong social output. The city of Palermo qualifies as a prominent research territory, due to its densely urbanized and populated waterfront areas, associated with a lack of transport infrastructures and efficient transit systems to meet the mobility demand of residents and commuters. A new waterfront arrangement can improve the city image and opens the way to new urban public transport systems by sea, like ferries and hydrofoils, as an alternative to the conventional land transit systems already affected by unavoidable congestion. Plans to link by sea different destination on the coast, should first identify and locate the several historical docking points of the city, as they will be the connections between the land transit systems and the sea. Local cultural heritage, handicraft, architecture and natural aspects, can be attractions for the sea transit users, occasional visitors, tourists and passengers on a cruise. The basic idea is to create a sea lane independent from the usual land routes which are highly congested by the daily massive and repeated movements of residents, between the south-west and the north-west of Palermo

The development of air traffic in Sicily

The aim of this work is to analyse the air traffic development that interested the airport system in Sicily, consisting of the airport of Palermo “Falcone –Borsellino”, the airport of Catania “Fontanarossa” and that one of Trapani-Birgi “Vincenzo Florio”. The analysis of the possible growth of air traffic volume and performance in Sicily was mainly suggested by the growing importance of the Mediterranean region like a new crossroad of the worldwide traffic on the East-West line. It gives a new chance for the development of this area that mustn’t be loosed. Globalization and the migrant flows from South and East towards the Western Europe, makes of the southern Italy a strategic knot for passengers and goods movements. So, new investments and infrastructures improvements that will be realized in this area are a value added not only for the southern Italy but also for the whole country. We have examined the potential demand attraction for passengers and goods movements in the Sicilian airports considered. For a more careful evaluation of the changes occurred into Sicilian air transport system, the research aimed to: § determine their "catchment area" through the evaluation of accessibility (isochrones); § analyse the air traffic data and the existing degree of integration, not only between the airports and the area, but also in terms of demand in the short and in the long period. Finally, we have evaluated the possibility of integration of traffic flows management among the two airports of Palermo and Trapani, in order to analyse if this two airports are complementary rather than competitors.

Helicopter operations: the environmental impact and ground facilities. Procedures and operational standards for the system’s acceptance.

The link between the heliports, environmental quality and safety is an important challenge in the field of helicopter transport. This challenge is especially crucial when the helicopter operations are carried out on densely urbanized areas. Often these areas have significant constraints and obstacles, particularly in terms of noise pollution. These constraints make the approach/takeoff maneuvers very complicated. The theme of the environmental sustainability of the rotorcraft is strongly felt in many countries. The production of noise is subjected to numerous rules and procedures, which tend to improve the acceptability of the helicopter by residents in neighboring areas to verti/heliports. The attention of manufacturers towards the problems of noise compatibility has produced technological innovations to reduce emissions, such as the shape of the tip of rotor blades, a speed reduction of rotation of the rotors, etc. Environmental concerns are becoming increasingly important when siting all aviation facilities. In particular, heliport facilities generate both positive and negative impacts on the surrounding environment. Negative impacts are mainly related to soil quality, water resources, safety issues, air environment (especially during the construction phase), noise (during operations) and biological environment. Positive ones could occur by the increase of emergency services, revenue generation, and the provision of a better connectivity with the neighborhoods located nearby the facility, the raise of employment opportunities and the general improvement of air transport facilities. The current international regulatory framework on heliport facilities seems to be lacking with regards to the evaluation of the environmental impacts of the heliport facilities. Moreover, the national rules on this topic are often undefined or vague. For this reason, it seems necessary to define guidelines to improve the awareness of the consequences which spontaneously arise from the planning and designing phase of heliports. Already from the site selection stage, heliport planners have to take into account all potential environmental issues. Noise is always the primary concern in these cases. A candidate site must be compatible with its surroundings. Compatibility must include any increase in activity resulting from IFR capability. Additional issues that citizens and municipalities are concerned about include air pollution, water pollution, ground access, and safety flight operations. Air pollution by helicopters is negligible although this issue may be brought up by concerned citizens and communities. Water pollution caused by fueling or maintenance facilities at a verti/heliport is coming under greater scrutiny. The ability to deal with all these public issues must be addressed during final site selection and community standards must be upheld. Ground access to a new transportation mode may increase traffic at and en route to that location and create a potential increase in noise and air pollution. These concerns must be dealt with in the design of ground access to the facility and by incorporating the individual community's standards, regulations, and goals. The receptivity of community leaders to work with the vertical landing facility to solve these problems should be measured in the final site selection process. Beyond the direct benefit of affecting the environment as little as possible, addressing environmental issues is an additional, albeit indirect tool, in obtaining and keeping good relations with the local government and its citizens. A heliport that has been developed into an IFR facility must be viable for a sufficient length of time to realize a return on investment (ROI) and to also achieve a contribution to the transportation system. In order to select a potentially viable heliport it is vital to consider the compatibility of surrounding land uses, both existing and future. A heliport that, at the present time, is considered by its neighbors as a nuisance cannot be counted on to remain in operation for an acceptable amount of time. Plans for future land use in the area must be determined through an investigation of planning documents at the appropriate levels (city, county, regional, etc.). Issues that instead will be addressed are related to the identification of the flight phases producing noise, by analyzing the different type of noise emission regarding the flight phase. Moreover, the role of helicopter’s pilot into the restraint of helicopter’s noise with particular regards to the driving behavior and its impact on noisiness’ reduction will be treated. In general, it can be stated that pilots have to do everything for reducing helicopter’s noise while remaining within the safety range’s parameters of the rotorcraft. Here comes the need of developing a worldwide analysis of the regulatory constraints for restricting helicopters’ impact on the populations residing nearby ground facilities. These constraints dictate operational rules for departure and approach phases of rotorcraft. Others factors affecting noise emissions are, for instance, temperature, humidity, wind, rotor blades. Standard procedures for noise abatement are: to fly at the highest altitude possible among those compatible with the airspace and safety rules; to enhance the awareness of the different noise perception that can be induced depending on the overflown environment (e.g. urban areas or country); The proposed study is articulated as follow: identification of measures to be implemented for reducing the environmental impact; analysis of current standard rules in several countries with regards to environmental constraints; proposals for initiatives aiming to the rules’ standardization regarding operations on heliports and helipads; samples of operational actions to be implemented for departure and approach phases; review of international experiences in the flight procedures applied for noise abatement

Infrastructure, Tariff and Legal Action: How to Achieve a Climate-Friendly Transport System

Transportation absorbs about 70% of oil consumption in EU countries. The fuels that burn in the field of transport are composed of 96% of oil. Energy efficiency of road and air traffic must also be improved. But transport environmental impacts reductions should be made necessarily through a transfer of traffic from the car, lorries and aircraft to train, ship, and non motorized two-wheelers into the EU cities. In fact the former are large producers of greenhouse gases, while the latter are more environmentally friendly means of transport in climate. Reaching an annual increase of 1% of the modal split in favour of more sustainable means of transport on the environment must be set as a goal ecologic. Legal, infrastructure and tariff measures have to be proposed, in addition to technical measures (reduction of traffic, growth in the energy efficiency of vehicles, reduction of ravelled distances, improved logistics, etc.). Legal measures refer to possible law limits in terms on fuel consumption and CO2 emissions due to traffic set by the EU. Infrastructure measures can be distinguished on the basis of the concerned territory. On the one hand there is the city, where it seems appropriate to move with intermodal chain, more secure and environmentally friendly. On the other hand there are fundamentally the suburbs, where investment in new transport infrastructures may be contradictory in terms of climate protection. Tariff measures express the already established concept of "who produces pollution, he pays". The external costs generated by different modes of transport have to be progressively turned over to users

Innovative transport services in areas with weak and peculiar public transport demand

A growing demand for mobility and the deficiencies in the transport system have transformed urban centres in “unliveable” places. A prevalent use of private cars produces high levels of pollution, casualties and road congestion. The promotion of public transport is considered an effective strategy to make mobility more sustainable for people. When a public transport system serves areas with a weak transportation demand, as it happens in territories with dispersed settlements (urban outskirts, rural areas, mountains, …), the resort to unconventional forms of public transport, such as dial and ride bus services, is necessary

Improved Efficiency Management Strategy for Battery-Based Energy Storage Systems

Battery-based energy storage systems are forecasted to have a rapid diffusion in the next future, because they can support the diffusion of renewable energy sources and can offer interesting ancillary services for the distribution grid. Consequently, energy management strategies for batteries and inverters present in storage systems will play a fundamental role in order to guarantee effective energy transfer processes between storage systems and the grid. This paper proposes an efficient management strategy which allows maximizing the overall energy efficiency of grid-connected storage systems taking into account the actual relationship between the efficiency and the charging/discharging power of the storage system. The effectiveness of the strategy is as shown by analysis results, the proposed strategy can allow a remarkable efficiency increase compared with strategies which are not aimed at the efficiency optimization

First identification of porcine parvovirus 3 in a wild boar in Italy by viral metagenomics – Short communication

Metagenomic analysis revealed the presence of porcine parvovirus 3 (PPV3) in the pool of the internal organs of a wild boar found dead in Southern Italy. Phylogenetic analysis based on the complete coding sequences showed that the newly detected virus is most closely related to those found also in wild boars in Romania during 2010–2011. Even though the death could not be associated with this virus, PPV3 could have contributed to lowering the host’s immunological defences

Changing trends in corneal graft surgery: A ten-year review

AIM: To review indications and corneal tissue use for penetrating and lamellar surgery between 2002 and 2011. METHODS: The surgical reports of corneal grafts performed during 2002-2011, using tissues supplied by the Eye Bank of Piedmont (Italy), were reviewed retrospectively. Patient demographic data, date of intervention, indication for surgery, and surgical technique used were recorded. Surgical techniques included penetrating keratoplasty (PK), deep anterior lamellar keratoplasty (DALK) and endothelial keratoplasty (EK). The χ2 test was used to compare the distribution of indications and types of surgical technique used, for corneal grafts done during 2002-2006 versus those done during 2007-2011. RESULTS: The number of corneal grafts increased by 30.7% from 2002-2006 to 2007-2011 (from 1567 to 2048). Comparing the two periods, both main indications and surgical techniques changed significantly. In 2007-2011, the proportion of interventions for aphakic/pseudophakic bullous keratopathy (from 16.8% to 21.3%), graft failure (from 16.4% to 19.1%) and Fuchs endothelial dystrophy (from 12.8% to 16.7%) all increased significantly (P<0.05), while those for keratoconus decreased significantly (from 35.6% to 27.3%; P<0.001). In 2007-2011, the proportion of PK decreased significantly (from 92.4% to 57.2%; P<0.001) while that of EK and DALK went from 0.4% to 30.2% (P<0.001) and from 7.2% to 12.6% (P<0.001) respectively. CONCLUSION: During 2002-2011 the number of interventions increased significantly for corneal endothelial diseases and graft failure. The growing demand for interventions for these diseases corresponded to the widespread adoption of EK techniques. The use of DALK also increased, but more moderately than EK procedures