The SOLEZ Action Plan for integration of low-carbon policies in the mobility planning of Torino’s functional urban area (FUA) has been elaborated in order to contribute to achieve the goals set by the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan. Different regulations have been developed along the years to plan the mobility within the FUA, starting with the regional Plan for the Quality of air in the year 2000, while in the City of Torino specifically, the planning started in ’95 with the Urban Traffic Plan, then followed by the General Traffic Plan in 2000, the New Urban Traffic Plan in 2002 that included the Urban Parking Plan and the Executive Plan for Traffic in the Central Area, in a process that introduced fee-paying car parks and Limited Traffic Zones. Since 2010 Torino then adopted new policy documents such as the Turin Action Plan for Energy  in 2008, the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan in 2010, the MasterPlan SMILE (Smart Mobility, Inclusion, Life&Health, Energy) and the Bike Plan in 2013, focusing on improving the quality of air, reducing CO2 emission, boosting public transport and sharing mobility, promoting biking, etc.

The strategic objectives that the City of Torino is willing to achieve locally and at FUA level, in terms of sustainable mobility and low carbon mobility strategies, will be aligned with the current planning and coherent  with the guiding principles of the common European strategy. Such approach shall support:
•technical sustainability of mobility objectives and actions;
•social sustainability -fairness and safety care for weaker users
•environmental sustainability -reduction of emissions and soil consumption, for a better air quality in the FUA -•economic sustainability -necessary for planning public works.

Short/medium term strategies for the mobility of people and goods in the FUA of Torino have 2-4 years time frame and are based on the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan, soon to be updated. Long term strategies, 10 to 15 years, shall think of an updated planning tool taking into account the evolving framework of urban mobility and applying all the definitions of sustainability to the three key concepts of future mobility: shared mobility, electric mobility, mobility without driver.

Expected impact and benefits of the strategy

The SOLEZ Action Plan of Torino’s functional urban area will contribute to the reduction of congestion and polluting emissions and will improve the capacities of public administrators to implement integrated sustainable mobility strategies in their territories.
The strategy of the Urban Sustainable Mobility Plan of Turin is to induce a rebalancing of the demand for transport between collective and individual, in order to reduce congestion and improve accessibility to the various urban functions.
Notably, the objectives of such transformation are to reduce the non productive access and to boost the economic attractiveness of such area especially from a commercial point of view.

Lessons learned 

Sustainable mobility and low-carbon mobility strategies must necessarily be coherent and integrated with current planning and in line with the guiding principles of the common European strategy on mobility and environmental protection. This path must point to the research and promotion of:
• technical sustainability of the mobility objectives and actions;
• social sustainability (criteria of fairness and security, attention to weak users);
• environmental sustainability (overall reduction of emissions and soil consumption, as a prerequisite for improving the quality of life within the functional urban area);
• economic sustainability (necessary premise in the planning of public works and policies).

The new plan must have an approach that starting from the basic concepts, also emerged during the stakeholders meetings, of environmental, economic and social sustainability, takes into account the new three pillars on which the mobility of the future will be based, which are:
shared mobility, electric mobility, driverless driving.
Furthermore, another objective of the plan will be to maximize the use of large existing infrastructures (public transport and all the shared mobility services implemented in the last years) through ITS technologies, which will have to be increasingly integrated with other mobility services (sharing mobility).

1^st VALUE-ADDED PILOT ACTION 

A Living Lab to a MaaS paradigm in Turin

The Municipality of Turin realized a Pilot action - Living Lab MaaS Torino - to test and experiment the Mobility as a Service - MaaS paradigm as innovative low-carbon Value-Added mobility services. The experimentation of the MaaS paradigm involved a large private company (characterized by a significant number of commuters performing daily home-to-work trips), selected through a public tender.

The City of Turin tested a technology platform, accessed through a mobile app. The app has been shared among the selected company workers and it contained the following macro-features: Route planner, booking and payment (and validation) for the following means of transport: local public transport, bike sharing, scooter sharing, taxi; Collection of anonymous and aggregated data on users regarding use of the app, mobility choices made, kilometers traveled;  Monthly corporate billing for costs for home to work mobility-job of employees, during the trial period. The Pilot action enabled to test in real-life experiment the MaaS platform and its innovative features, and to experiment incentive mechanisms for sustainable mobility within a restricted ecosystem of users - Living lab with company employees, involved in the pilot.

 Expected impacts and benefits

The real-life testing of the Maas concept and App carried out through SOLEZ project permitted to demonstrate the feasibility and functioning of the developed system and to fine-tune it. This activity involved a large private company characterized by a significant number of commuters performing daily home-to-work trips, that was selected through a public tender. The employees of this company have been the first direct beneficiaries of the MaaS system developed in Turin. In a further step and thanks to a National financing, employees of the City of Torino are expected to be involve for the “massive” implementation of the MaaS system in the FUA.

It’s worth to underline that this Pilot Activity was carried out in synergy between SOLEZ and H2020 projects that provided the needed competencies and funding for MaaS infrastructure design and development.

2^nd VALUE-ADDED PILOT ACTION

Multi users lanes for fright mobility in Turin LTZ

To reduce conflict of usage and negative traffic effects in urban spaces, as part of SOLEZ Pilot Activities the City of Turin tested the multi-users lanes concept for goods transport.

Multi-users lanes can be considered as a pull measure aimed at managing access to reserved bus lanes including freight transport. This measure represents an added-value freight mobility services enabling of sharing dedicated bus lanes by logistics operators - specific recognized commercial vehicles (mostly light commercial fewer polluting vehicles) - without affecting public transport system and reducing congestion for all categories of road users.

These lanes have been selected among the ones connecting urban and peri-urban areas of Turin with restricted areas (e.g. LTZ, pedestrian areas, etc.) useful for freight delivery services enabling to reach destinations for goods drop-off and pick-up in most convenient, safer, faster and cheaper way compared to the use of common road transport network (characterized by significant traffic patterns and congestion caused from conflicts between passengers and freight transport). Once defined the overall framework of the multi-user’s lanes concept, Turin performed local-based data collection through On Board Units and questionnaires. It resulted that the permit to use LPT reserved lanes actually increases logistics operations’ efficiency, reducing length of trips and negative traffic impacts, but specific conditions have to be respected, not to have negative side-effects on Public Transport.

Expected impacts and benefits

 The Pilot Activity allowed to collect a valuable set of data on vehicles behaviors, when allowed to use PT reserved lines in and around the city center. For example, it emerged a problem related to the use of the parking lots reserved for loading-unloading operations, whose improper usage risks to jeopardize the advantages of the multi-user lanes concept. These data and knowledge will now be used by the City of Turin to define the criteria for implementing the multi-users lanes concept in its central area, allowing a notable CO2 savings from freight transport.

The Value-Addes Services toolbox developed during the project are described in the following deliverables available in the publication section:

• D.T2.2.1 – Study on specific supply chains in professional urban freight transport and delivery services
• D.T2.2.2 – Support tool (toolbox) for overall design of low-carbon Value-Added Services for freight and people
• D.T2.2.3 - ICT-based tools supporting Value-Added services implementation