Is there room for shared cars in Italy? Considerations from some recent experiences

Car sharing is increasing its role worldwide as an alternative transport mode, that could contribute to a more sustainable urban mobility by reducing congestion and pollution. The paper focuses on the understanding of which are the main characteristics of this service starting from the literature on this topic both in terms of user profile and impact of the service; in the second part of the paper, the Italian context will be presented starting from the analysis of four Italian experiences with a particular focus on Milan’s car sharing. Summarizing the conclusion, it emerges that to date, the overall impact on transport is still quite low, in part due to a scarce integration and coordination with other transport modes and in part because car is still perceived primarily as a status symbol and a “good” rather than as a “service”. Therefore, car sharing can perform as a significant complementary and sustainable solution to mobility needs only in a context of cultural change and inside a transport policy aimed at changing transport behavior.car sharing; sustainable mobility; transport policy; urban mobility; peer to peer car sharing;

A proposal for a world database on transport infrastructure regulation

The paper presents the structure and the concepts at the basis of a database on world transport infrastructure regulation, to be launched. The database will be built promoting a “soft” survey on the world regulatory practices, to be filled by scholars and experts on a voluntary basis. The goal of the database is to stimulate research on best practices and interaction among regulators, regulated and scholars. The work is still under construction. The database structure is ready and the survey is already launched, but incomplete. This paper is a preliminary document which provides a detailed description of the aims and of the database structure, in order to circulate the project and collect suggestions from the academic community. The structure of the paper is as follows. After a presentation of the aims of the work, section 2 provides a literature review on existing databases. Section 3 details the project, describing the characteristics of the survey, the strengths and weaknesses of the approach, the network to be activated. Section 4 is giving more details on the actual structure of the database and of the corresponding survey. Section 5 gives notice of the first results obtained with a preliminary survey and a preliminary review of literature on some selected countries. Conclusions will outline the next steps of the research.transport; regulation; investment; infrastructure; database; survey

Financing transport infrastrucure projects in Italy: a critical analysis of the main approaches

This paper aims at analysing the methodology used for financing large infrastructure projects in Italy. In particular, it focuses on the Italian highway sector, where in the last years many projects have been launched using new financial instruments. The paper discusses three of these “instruments”. The first one is the Project Financing, discussed starting from a general review, analyzing also the different typologies used, the risks involved and their allocation among the various subjects that take part in the PF mechanism. A special case concerns the recently introduced model used for the Italian highways, known as “PF with takeover compensation”. There are two other important mechanisms used for financing infrastructure projects in Italy: the exploitation of road demand rigidity and the spreading of the investment over the entire network, favouring larger concessions. We conclude that all these three mechanisms present deep flaws in terms of transparency and of contradiction with economic feasibility criteria (that have to dominate the public investment rationale).transport; investment; infrastructure; project financing; highway.

Car sharing peer-to-peer: un’analisi empirica sulla città di Milano

I sistemi di carsharing (di seguito CS) sono considerati un’alternativa promettente all’auto privata. Nonostante diverse iniziative si siano sviluppate nel mondo, l’impatto reale sulla mobilità privata rimane ancora trascurabile. Una delle possibili evoluzioni del carsharing è rappresentata dal carsharing “peer to peer” (di seguito P2P) per il quale le auto non sono fornite centralmente da un gestore, ma sono di proprietà di singoli individui che le affittano nei momenti di non utilizzo in cambio di un ritorno economico. A partire da un’indagine svolta nel 2012 tra gli abitanti del comune di Milano, l’articolo cerca di individuare i principali fattori che favoriscono l’adesione ad un sistema di carsharing P2P. In particolare, la probabilità di adesione ad un sistema P2P è indagata attraverso un’analisi econometrica che si avvale di due modelli a scelta discreta: un modello logit binomiale e un modello logit multinomiale. Quest’ultimo consente di investigare la probabilità di condividere l’auto personale tra diversi gruppi di persone (nessuno; amici, colleghi e vicini; chiunque). L’articolo contribuisce alla ricerca, ancora in nuce, sul tema P2P e rappresenta il primo tentativo di analizzare, attraverso una indagine specifica, la propensione ad aderire ad uno schema P2P di condivisione dell’auto personale

Is there room for shared cars in Italy? Considerations from some recent experiences

Car sharing is increasing its role worldwide as an alternative transport mode, that could contribute to a more sustainable urban mobility by reducing congestion and pollution. The paper focuses on the understanding of which are the main characteristics of this service starting from the literature on this topic both in terms of user profile and impact of the service; in the second part of the paper, the Italian context will be presented starting from the analysis of four Italian experiences with a particular focus on Milan’s car sharing. Summarizing the conclusion, it emerges that to date, the overall impact on transport is still quite low, in part due to a scarce integration and coordination with other transport modes and in part because car is still perceived primarily as a status symbol and a “good” rather than as a “service”. Therefore, car sharing can perform as a significant complementary and sustainable solution to mobility needs only in a context of cultural change and inside a transport policy aimed at changing transport behavior

Carsharing peer-to-peer: propensione alla condivisione dei veicoli privati nella città di Milano

In recent years, several peer-to-peer carsharing systems have developed worldwide. They allow car owners to share their vehicles in exchange of a monetary compensation. The paper, starting from an online survey carried out in Milan in 2012, analyzes the potentiality of a possible peer-to-peer carsharing service. It investigates the propensity of users to share their vehicles, as well as the moments of the day in which they are willing to make the car available for sharing and the thresholds of minimum income required to take part to the scheme. The survey shows a moderate interest towards the scheme in general, evidencing also a good attitude towards the sharing of private vehicles, especially if made among a small group of trusted users. The supply function has been built starting from the amount of money requested by car owners and the stated windows of weekly availability to share their cars. The analysis of the supply function allows to discriminate between different types of users and highlights how some moments of the day (early morning) have greater potential in terms of available shared vehicles while others are characterized by higher monetary compensations desired by car owners to share their cars (evening)

The process of highway privatization in Italy and Japan

In the last decade, the private sector has increased its role in the highways sector both through the construction and management of new assets. Private sector involvement, often justified by the need to ease public expenditure, allows a reduction in public participation for new investments. The public sector remains in charge of other important issues such as regulation, but privatization entails the transfer of a natural monopoly to another subject with completely different objectives compared with the public operator. The present work wants to analyse the highway privatization processes in Italy and Japan focusing on the two approaches and on their differences; the paper tries to evaluate the policies applied and their consequences on the general economic well – being according to a public economics viewpoint. Italy implemented a real privatization process (even if some regulatory issues have risen) while Japan still faces a strong public presence

Is there room for shared cars in Italy? Considerations from some recent experiences

Car sharing is increasing its role worldwide as an alternative transport mode, that could contribute to a more sustainable urban mobility by reducing congestion and pollution. The paper focuses on the understanding of which are the main characteristics of this service starting from the literature on this topic both in terms of user profile and impact of the service; in the second part of the paper, the Italian context will be presented starting from the analysis of four Italian experiences with a particular focus on Milan’s car sharing. Summarizing the conclusion, it emerges that to date, the overall impact on transport is still quite low, in part due to a scarce integration and coordination with other transport modes and in part because car is still perceived primarily as a status symbol and a “good” rather than as a “service”. Therefore, car sharing can perform as a significant complementary and sustainable solution to mobility needs only in a context of cultural change and inside a transport policy aimed at changing transport behavior

Carsharing peer-to-peer: propensione alla condivisione dei veicoli privati nella città di Milano

In recent years, several peer-to-peer carsharing systems have developed worldwide. They allow car owners to share their vehicles in exchange of a monetary compensation. The paper, starting from an online survey carried out in Milan in 2012, analyzes the potentiality of a possible peer-to-peer carsharing service. It investigates the propensity of users to share their vehicles, as well as the moments of the day in which they are willing to make the car available for sharing and the thresholds of minimum income required to take part to the scheme. The survey shows a moderate interest towards the scheme in general, evidencing also a good attitude towards the sharing of private vehicles, especially if made among a small group of trusted users. The supply function has been built starting from the amount of money requested by car owners and the stated windows of weekly availability to share their cars. The analysis of the supply function allows to discriminate between different types of users and highlights how some moments of the day (early morning) have greater potential in terms of available shared vehicles while others are characterized by higher monetary compensations desired by car owners to share their cars (evening)

Financing transport infrastrucure projects in Italy: a critical analysis of the main approaches

This paper aims at analysing the methodology used for financing large infrastructure projects in Italy. In particular, it focuses on the Italian highway sector, where in the last years many projects have been launched using new financial instruments. The paper discusses three of these “instruments”. The first one is the Project Financing, discussed starting from a general review, analyzing also the different typologies used, the risks involved and their allocation among the various subjects that take part in the PF mechanism. A special case concerns the recently introduced model used for the Italian highways, known as “PF with takeover compensation”. There are two other important mechanisms used for financing infrastructure projects in Italy: the exploitation of road demand rigidity and the spreading of the investment over the entire network, favouring larger concessions. We conclude that all these three mechanisms present deep flaws in terms of transparency and of contradiction with economic feasibility criteria (that have to dominate the public investment rationale)