Estimating the Potential of Ride Sharing in Urban Areas: the Milan Metropolitan Area Case Study

In the near future, cities will have to supply innovative and high value-added mobility services, that shall be sustainable in terms of environmental impact, traffic management and energy efficiency. This represents a great challenge: transportation accounts for 20% of the global energy consumption, with a large share in urban areas (around 40% of total transport consumption). One of the most promising solutions to reduce congestion, energy consumption and air pollutants in highly-populated areas is Ride Sharing. Ride Sharing systems aim to bring together travellers with similar itineraries and time schedules, thus providing significant societal and environmental benefits, such as reducing the number of cars used for personal travel and improving the utilization of available seat capacity (also defined “occupancy rate”). This paper examines the impact of Ride Sharing by developing an enhanced transport model in Visum, which takes into account the shareability of passengers mobility patterns. The model is applied to the Milan Metropolitan Area, which represents an interesting test case for two main reasons: first, its high population density and strong transport offer and second, the large amount of information and data available on passengers mobility. The paper assumes an optimal 20% participation rate to Ride Sharing and estimates its benefits in terms of congestion reduction, energy efficiency and environmental impact. The COPERT software is used to estimate Carbon Dioxide emissions and fuel consumption savings. The simulation results show that Ride Sharing brings a sort of rebound effect, since there is an increase in passengers traveling by car. However, the overall effect is a reduction in the number of vehicles used, with consequent reductions in vehicle kilometers travelled (-3.8%). This translates into 6% energy savings and 6% Carbon Dioxide emissions reduction. Some policy recommendations are provided to develop Ride Sharing in order to increase the effectiveness of this system while restraining side effects

The e-REAL’s Time Travelling Immersive Experience Towards a Net-Zero Greenhouse Gas Emissions Economy

The European Union aims to be climate-neutral by 2050 – an economy with net-zero greenhouse gas emissions. RSE carries out research in the field of electrical energy with special focus on national strategic projects supported through the Fund for Research into Electrical Systems. The activity covers the entire supply system with an application-oriented, experimental, and system-based approach. The e-REAL’s time travelling immersive experience is based on RSE’s know-how and allows interactive and immersive experiences that are a powerful way to cascading relevant communication and fostering people’s awareness about the European Union targets

Assessing the Impact on Grid Infrastructure of Electrification Pathways for the Italian Residential Sector

To achieve the decarbonization objectives described in the Paris Agreement, thermal appliances’ electrification is considered an essential factor. Unfortunately, the substitution of thermal appliances with electric alternatives will inevitably increase the load on the national electric system; thus, it is crucial to perform analyses to assess these policies’ impact. This paper, using as a reference the electrification pathways studied by Besagni et al. employing the MOIRAE (bottom-up MOdel to compute the energy consumption of the Italian REsidential sector) model, calculates the energy and power increase in the residential sector in 2030 due to the substitution of different thermal appliances and discusses potential policies to take into account the effect of their implementation on the Italian electric system. Even if the current generation capacity can sustain the electrification process without problems, investments will be needed to limit the possibility of congestions on transmission lines connecting the country’s northern and southern parts

Market-Based Instruments to Promote Energy Efficiency: Insights from the Italian Case

Market-based instruments such as white certificates offer the potential to increase efficiency gains, reduce primary energy consumption and make energy systems more resilient. The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into the white certificate scheme through a case study analysis. In light of increasing decarbonization and energy efficiency targets, it is important to rethink the role that policy instruments play in the energy transition, including the energy efficiency obligation schemes within which white certificate schemes fall. We focus on Italy’s white certificate scheme because it is among the longest-lived and has achieved notable results. The scheme is characterized by annually increasing energy savings targets, flexibility, the opportunity to include many interventions, and the role of energy services companies. We provide evidence based on an empirical survey and fill the research gap left by the latest updates to the scheme along with an appraisal of those updates, which covers prominent scheme innovations such as its stability mechanism. Our research can serve as a baseline for policymakers in designing white certificate schemes in countries with little related previous experience and provide useful information from countries where similar schemes have been implemented to fine-tune similar market-based mechanisms to improve energy efficiency

Bottom-up modelling of the Italian municipal waste generation: Model set-up, validation and pathways towards 2040

The residential sector contributes to about 17% of the total waste generation in Italy. The main objectives set by the European and Italian governments regarding the waste sector include the promotion of reuse, recycling, and recovery, listed in order of importance; therefore, it is crucial to achieving, among others, a sufficient waste management capacity at the national level to accomplish such targets. In this context, a new approach to estimating and forecasting waste generation is introduced, based on bottom-up modelling to estimate the past and future Italian municipal waste generation. The modelling approach builds upon microdata describing the household expenditure behaviours supplied by the National Institute of Statistics. The assessment was carried out by dividing Italy into six macro-regions. The model was then validated by comparing the results with the historical aggregated official waste generation data. Lastly, a socio-demographic model has been applied to predict the trends of the various waste fractions due to the expected variation in the population, considering four different scenarios from 2019 to 2040. Results show the model's good performance, with relative errors below 5% at the national average concerning the historical data. The forecast of future trends gives a comprehensive picture of the effect of different waste management strategies