The impact of land use characteristics for sustainable mobility: the case study of Rome

Abstract

Background Sustainable mobility requires actions to reduce the need for travel, to promote modal shift, to reduce trip lengths and to increase efficiency of transport system. Public transport could play an important role to solve part of the needs previously reported. Starting from these remarks, the present paper analyse the role, the importance and the impact of land use characteristics to develop services able to compete with automobile use. This analysis is carried out by studying the real world case of the city of Rome in Italy. Results The results of the test carried out highlight the importance of density of residences and activities, the need for a good quality access system to the transit services stops and the importance of the configuration of the transit network, identifying the best way to connect the different districts of the urban area. However, single actions are not sufficient to achieve a sustainable transport system: these actions can be successful only if they are planned in a complex unique system that helps the synergic development of the effects of the single actions proposed.

Summary on the effect of density, diversity and pedestrian infrastructure on the use of rail-based urban public transport

“…For example, support the idea of high and compact land use density surrounding transit station as high density provides services to a community in terms of access from home to workplace, businesses, school, as well as recreation either by walking and cycling or efficient use of mass transportation. In the context of an urban area, there are two major land uses; residential and commercial which are crucial in determining public transit patronage as to accommodate high travel demand of work trip in peak hour on weekdays [5][6][7][8]. The authors apparently stated rail-based transit stations in high density urban area are usually a few, located at strategic locations supported by feeder bus services.…”

“…The authors apparently stated rail-based transit stations in high density urban area are usually a few, located at strategic locations supported by feeder bus services. Perhaps the standard benchmark for land use density surrounding transit station can be based on [9] idea ranging from 50,000 to 100,000 population at 40 to 200 persons per hectare. The Canadian city of Calgary has a comprehensive initiative in replacing automobile uses to public transit as specified in Calgary Transportation Plan in which high density land uses are designed along transit line in the city particularly to solve traffic congestion [10].…”

“…It connects residential, commercial retail, banks and shops, service transfer stations, shopping malls, sport stadiums and off-street parking to transit station and vice versa [4,13,20]. It provides pedestrian connectivity to transit station between 0.4 to 0.8 km radius, particularly to boost transit ridership [6]. Examples in California show that enhancement of pedestrian infrastructure design such as pathways, landscaping, and street lighting upgrades have all attracted private investment in the Transit-oriented Development (TOD).…”

Replanning public transport services in the case of budget reductions

“…In this context, the planning of an efficient and effective public transport system is a key element in managing modern mobility both in densely populated urban areas and in peripheral and/or rural areas where the population densities are considerably lower. Indeed, the presence of public transport designed to meet travel demand could allow a reduction in negative externalities (such as congestion, accidents, noise and air pollution) produced by private cars without excessively penalising user travel times or accessibility to different zones (as shown by [1]). The current trend in developing methods for reducing the use of private cars is highlighted by [2][3][4][5].…”

The value of information for the accessibility to concurrent transit system services

“…Currently the public transport system is not competitive with private transport: specifically, it happens in urban areas, where the continuous spread of residences and activities have increased the length and the complexity of trips [1], but also in extra-urban areas where the access/egress phase to/from the public transport system is poorly organized. In fact, the public transport, in order to compete with the car, that is a service with high accessibility, should ensure good "door to door" travel time and it can be achieved only if high standards of accessibility to the service are guaranteed.…”