Genoa, called "la Superba" (the Proud), is the capital of the northern Italian region "Liguria". The city, characterised by one of the largest historical centres in Europe, is the core of the Italian Riviera. Activity of the tertiary sector, settled in the downtown, are primarily related to the commercial port, one of the most important in the Mediterranean Sea.

Heavy industry in reconversion is located in the western part of the city. Nowadays tourism is the sector where higher improvements occur.

Genoa's activities in PRoGR€SS

In Genoa several measures have already and are being adopted, by the Public Administration, to restrict private vehicle use. Road pricing is seen as one necessary complementary action to reach the final sustainable mobility/environmental asset for the year 2000.

Within PRoGR€SS, Genoa is going to test a cordon pricing scheme, designed to protect the historical centre and the downtown. The scheme will cover a zone of about 2.5 km². Fees are collected per trip (at each entrance in the protected zones); repeated entrances within a given time period are not charged. Fares will vary according to day of the week, time of day, user type, and environmental conditions.

The technology adopted in the Genoa demonstration is based on plate video recognition and central software data processing. No in-vehicle equipment is required. The roadside single-lane video camera embeds the image recognition module and is able to detect up to 25 frames per second. The plate number list is sent to the central processing unit every given time period. Here, dedicated software matches data with a car owners' database and checks eligibility of charging. The demo will be a full real pricing scheme with real charging and real users.

The expected effects of road pricing application are twofold:

To force private drivers to use alternative routes not crossing the city centre

Genoa is a city of 650,000 inhabitants and about 300,000 cars (0.46 cars per inhabitant). The Public Transport coverage is 785 km of bus lines, 56 km of urban railway (16 existing stations and 4 in project), 3 km of metro (4.3 under construction), 3 km of funiculars and 10 lifts.

The territory of the city is crossed by the motorway (with 7 tollhouses) that is used as an urban ringroad.

The transport strategy

On November 22nd 2000. the new Urban Transport Plan came into force; it indicates as objectives to achieve:

Reduction of private vehicle use and trips due to freight, particularly in the city centre

Increasing of existing public transport service (extension of metro and trolley buses; promotion of hybrid and electric vehicles; integration of fares between bus, metro and urban rail; development of protected bus lanes and AVM for fleet management, bus priority and passenger information)

Increasing of urban and environmental quality by extension of pedestrian areas and improvement of streets furniture

Management of urban freight transport: testing a prototype system for the freight transport in the city centre

Sea ways: a new public transport on sea, particularly addressed to tourists, to link the airport with the Ancient Harbour

On-demand shuttle service: management of an electric bus system on demand, in order to connect Park & Ride zones and the historical centre

The history of road user charging in Genoa

Genoa has been showing its interest in pricing policies with its adhesion to EURoPrice and with its participation in the PRESS project (Pricing Roads for Energy Savings and the benefit of Society), whose aim was to give insight and to disseminate knowledge about the effects that mobility pricing in congested urban and suburban areas induces on society. To this aim, road pricing measures will be applied in order to simulate different scenarios.

The charging scheme implemented will be tested within the project PRoGR€SS: the system will include two gates existing to check the entries in Sarzano, a small place within the centre, in which the accessibility is possible only for the residents.

Sustainable Urban TRAnsportation: the primary objective is to develop a consistent and comprehensive approach and planning methodology for the analysis of urban transportation problems, that helps to design strategies for sustainable cities.

Advance Simulation Interoperable Architecture: the project aims at the development of a simulation environment that, through the integration of different simulation tools, will offer an effective approach in the definition and the analysis of transport systems (i.e. traffic lights centralisation assessment, traffic flow evaluation, micro and macro simulation, etc.). As for the city of Genoa, it is expected to result in an improvement in mobility management.