A comprehensive approach to assess transportation system resilience towards disruptive events. Case study on airside airport systems

Transportation system resilience towards events that disrupt system scheduling and nominal functioning is a key challenge for both planners and transport operators. The development of effective policies to enhance resilience requires the analysis of the relationships between the type of disruptive event, the characteristics of the transport system under analysis and its response. This paper aims to contribute to this topic by providing some vulnerability and resilience indices for a complex transport node (airport) within a comprehensive framework based on an element-by-element approach able to identify both disturbances for which transportation systems are more vulnerable (or more resilient) and responses in terms of vulnerability and resilience. Infrastructural, organizational and technological transportation system elements that are more likely affected by given disruptions are the starting point for clustering possible disruptive events. The approach has been tested by simulating four European airports, for which the effects of different types of disruption have been discussed. The obtained results show that the responses of transport system elements to the same type of disruptive events may be different, according to several factors depending on both system features and use of resources. Furthermore, the duration of the disturbance may be relevant for the system vulnerability, while resilience and vulnerability do not necessarily vary in the same way

A study on the optimal aircraft location for human organ transportation activities

Abstract The donation-transplant network's complexity lies in the need to reconcile standardized processes and high levels of urgency and uncertainty due to organs' perishability and location. Both punctuality and reliability of air transportation service are crucial to ensure the safe outcome of the transplant. To this scope, an Integer Linear Programming (ILP) model is here proposed to determine the optimal distribution of aircraft in a given set of hubs and under the demand extracted from the Italian transplant database. This is an application of uncapacitated facility location problems, where aircraft are facilities to be located and organ transportation requests represent the demand. Two scenarios (two hubs versus three hubs) are tested under the performance point of view and over different time periods to assess the influence of variations in demand pattern and time period length on the solution

Flexible mobile hub for e-bike sharing and cruise tourism: A case study

Bike sharing is no longer a novelty in transportation and has now become a mobility solution in its own right. This study investigated the potential scope of application of e-bike sharing solutions for a niche sector such as cruise tourism, the importance of which is growing, with the aim of improving sustainability and reducing pollution levels in cruise ports. A revealed preference survey was administered to cruise tourists, who chose a pilot e-bike service once they had disembarked from the ship to visit the nearby city center, to investigate the main variables affecting satisfaction with the service under investigation. An ordered probit model was specified and calibrated to identify the relationship among the variables influencing e-bike sharing usage by cruise tourists and their satisfaction. Subsequently, the marginal effect of each significant factor was evaluated to quantify its actual impact on the related e-bike sharing satisfaction level. The results obtained are consistent with the literature, but interesting interpretations are provided in terms of the relative importance of significant variables

Qualitative flood risk assessment for road and railway infrastructures: the experience of the MOVIDA project

The Po River District Authority promoted the MOVIDA project with the aim to define appropriate methodologies for flood risk assessment and being compliant with the European Floods Directive (Directive 2007/60/EC). A dedicated Open Source Geographic Information System (i.e. QGIS geoprocessing modules) has been developed for mapping the expected damages in all areas at significant risk in the Po District (Northern Italy), considering five categories of exposed elements (population, infrastructures, economic activities, environmental and cultural heritage, and na-tech sites). Focusing on road and railway infrastructures, the methodology proposed within the project adopts information coming from different data sources (Regional Geoportals, Open Street Map, etc.) and allows to qualitatively estimate the potential risk associated with a flood event. Different risk classes (High, Medium, Low and Null) are assigned in relation to roads category (i.e., Highways, Main, Secondary, Service, Other) or railways type (High-Speed train or not), thus considering both the relevance of the infrastructure itself (as well as its topographical characteristics: e.g. tunnel, bridge, etc.) and the magnitude of the expected event (i.e., hazard). The definition of the risk matrix led to the estimation of the lengths of the sections exposed to different risk levels, which is useful to support the definition of potential mitigation measures and support the competent bodies in the organization of the rescue.</p

Analysis of traffic flow variability on two-lane highways

The main objective of this paper is to develop and test an approach for the spatio-temporal analysis of traffic flow variation on two lane highways. Traffic count devices located in several points of two lane highway links give the aggregate time series of data used in this approach, which is based on the Principal Components Analysis (PCA). The statistical analysis of main sources of temporal variation in traffic flow provides interesting insights about the properties and the characteristics of medium and long-term flow dynamics. This particular methodology was found to be capable of forecasting and identifying the location and the magnitude of traffic peak events in the network

Airport noise charges and local communities: application to regional airports

There have always been conflicts among airports and local communities due to the aeronautical noise generated by airport operations. In fact, this is a factor that - if not properly managed - could severely cut down the growth of air traffic in an airport with direct effects on the economic and territorial system. Beside this, in the last decade the critical issues related to the impact of aeronautical noise on airport operations have greatly reduced, thanks to technological improvements in aircraft design. Nevertheless, the reduction of noise emissions during a single aircraft operation does not make the issue of the airports\u2019 location less important. This is the case of regional airports in EU, which have recently experimented a large traffic increase due to the development of low-cost traffic. It is now clear that the problem cannot be reduced to its mere technological aspect, but it ought to be dealt with the involvement of the various stakeholders in order to mitigate the emissions and adequately compensate the impacts to local communities. Typically, there are two possible countermeasures to mitigate the effects of aircraft noise: operational measures, based on the application of technological and organizational devices and market-based measures. The application of noise taxes, aiming at compensating the negative externalities generated by airport operations is becoming increasingly widespread in EU. In this paper, a methodology for the application of noise taxes based on the actual noise of aircraft operating into an airport is discussed and implemented in a test case

L'analisi e la gestione delle problematiche di impatto acustico aeroportuale

La concezione dell\u2019aeroporto come mera localit\ue0 destinata all\u2019approdo e allo stazionamento degli aeromobili appare sempre di pi\uf9 limitativa alla luce del ruolo di crescente importanza che gli scali aeroportuali ricoprono all\u2019interno del tessuto economico, produttivo e turistico di un\u2019area (Doganis 2001, Graham 2003). La spinta propulsiva dovuta al processo di liberalizza-zione del trasporto aereo a livello comunitario ha infatti, da un lato, comportato un radicale mutamento nel processo gestionale delle strutture aeroportuali, mentre dall\u2019altro ha determinato un fenomeno di ridistribuzione del traffico aereo che ha accresciuto l\u2019importanza di molti scali minori e sotto utilizzati. L\u2019aeroporto viene cos\uec a configurarsi come una realt\ue0 aziendale connotata da una molteplicit\ue0 di processi e caratterizzata da una elevata complessit\ue0 am-bientale atta a generare redditivit\ue0 nel lungo termine. Gli aeroporti pertanto rappresentano attivit\ue0 economiche vere e proprie che concentrano grandi vo-lumi di investimento e una forte domanda di beni e servizi sempre pi\uf9 soggetti alle logiche di mercato (Jarach, 2002). Parallelamente l\u2019aeroporto rappresenta anche il punto di congiunzione fra il territorio, contraddistinto da esigenze di mobilit\ue0 e nello stesso tempo di preservazione delle condizioni ambientali, e il sistema di trasporto aereo, contraddistinto dalle esigenze operative dei vettori e dalle esigenze di spostamento degli utenti. Agli innegabili effetti positivi che la presenza di un aeroporto determina in un territorio, sintetizzabili in un au-mento dell\u2019accessibilit\ue0, in un aumento dell\u2019occupazione e in una diminuzione dei costi di trasporto, si contrappongono una serie di esternalit\ue0 negative a prevalente carattere locale, che condizionano fortemente il suddetto rapporto. Le esternalit\ue0 che maggiormente condizionano lo sviluppo degli aeroporti sono quelle ambientali (B. Graham 1999, A. Graham 2003) il cui prevalente carattere locale pu\uf2 determinare una forte conflittualit\ue0 fra gli aeroporti e le comunit\ue0 che sorgono nei territori limitrofi ai sedimi aeroportuali. La principale di queste esternalit\ue0 \ue8 certamente rappresentata dagli impatti acustici prodotti dalle operazioni degli aeromobili. Le problematiche ambientali tuttavia non solo rappresentano una fastidiosa esternalit\ue0 che riduce il grado di benessere dei residenti nelle comunit\ue0 localizzate in prossimit\ue0 ai sedimi aeroportuali, ma \ue8 ampiamente riconosciuto come esse possono rappresentare un limite allo sviluppo del traffico aereo stesso (Upham et al. 2003, Goetz 2004) nel caso in cui non vengano ben gestite. Le potenziali limitazioni allo sviluppo del traffico dovute proprio alle problematiche acustiche rappresentano una forte criticit\ue0 in ragione della mutata concezione delle strutture aeroportuali che sempre di pi\uf9 assumono il ruolo di attivit\ue0 economiche e aziendali operanti in un mercato concorrenziale. In particolare il forte aumento del traffico in molti scali secondari, come conseguenza del processo di liberalizzazione, se non adeguatamente gestito, pu\uf2 indurre un esacerbamento delle problematiche ambientali locali. Infatti, se in linea di principio la ridistribuzione del traffico rappresenta uno strumento per diminuire le esternalit\ue0 dove esse risultano pi\uf9 concentrate, in realt\ue0 questo strumento risulta efficace soltanto qualora preveda l\u2019allocazione di traffico ove ci sia una disponibilit\ue0 maggiore di capacit\ue0 ambientale. In molti aeroporti regionali, infatti, la mancata o tardiva pianificazione territoriale, solo in parte favorita dai limitati livelli di traffico, ha determinato una espansione dell\u2019urbanizzazione che negli anni si \ue8 spinta fino in prossimit\ue0 dei sedimi aeroportuali, comportando come conseguenza che una repentina crescita del traffico possa generare potenziali incompatibilit\ue0 ambientali. L\u2019influenza delle problematiche ambientali nell\u2019operativit\ue0 delle infrastrutture aeroportuali, accresciuta in importanza a causa del diverso ruolo ricoperto d..

AIRPLANE NOISE AS A LIMIT TO GROWTH OF EUROPEAN REGIONAL AIRPORTS

Air transport represents a dynamic and fast growing industry that fits well with the needs of nowadays society. The process of liberalization and deregulation in the air transport market introduced by the European Commission in the last decade has deeply modified the structure of aviation at Community level. The growth in importance of carriers with a different economic structure along with the growth of regional airports are among the most important products of the changed scenario. Regional airports occupy a central role within the deregulated market since they represent preferred destinations for low-cost carriers and spokes for network carriers. Aviation represents also a source of environmental externalities, especially at local level, which interfere with human activities. If on the one hand the impact of emissions at local level is under study and deserves a better understanding, on the other hand noise has always been a serious problem for dwellings located near the airports. Even if there has been a tremendous improvement in aircraft noise performances during the last twenty years the growth of the aviation market has outstripped this benefits. The enforcement of recent noise policies by the European Commission shifts the problem of noise impact from annoyance for people living near the airports to a constraint of airports growth. It is essential for airport operators to manage the variables that affect airport acoustical capacity in order to maximize the number of aircrafts that an airport can handle within a given noise level

Analisi della relazione fra traffico e offerta autostradale: il caso italiano (1974 - 2000)

In questa nota viene analizzata la relazione fra offerta autostradale, rappresentata dai chilometri-corsia della rete autostradale italiana, e traffico autostradale, misurato in veicoli-chilometro. La base di dati \ue8 riferita a osservazioni annuali per gli anni dal 1974 al 2000, relativamente all\u2019intera rete autostradale nazionale. Vengono specificati e calibrati alcuni modelli aggregati log-lineari, considerando separatamente le componenti di traffico leggero e pesante: la variabile di offerta, rappresentata dai chilometri corsia della rete autostradale italiana, viene considerata in tali modelli anche traslata nel tempo, allo scopo di valutare gli effetti immediati e a medio termine prodotti sulla domanda di trasporto autostradale dalla variazione dell\u2019offerta disponibile. Oltre alla variabile di offerta di trasporto autostradale vengono considerate altre variabili socioeconomiche e di costo del trasporto: il prodotto interno lordo, la produzione industriale ed i prezzi medi del carburante