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The “Spettabile Reggenza dei Sette Comuni” Mountain Union, based in Asiago, has been recognized as an “Internal Area” within the National Strategy for Internal Areas (SNAI), a local development instrument that pursues objectives related to combating demographic decline and relaunching these areas, recovering and enhancing the potential of the territories.
Among the interventions provided by the Area Strategy and the Framework Program Agreement, the Mountain Union is the implementing entity of the intervention concerning the drafting of the Mobility Reorganization Plan in its territory with a view to sustainability, an action that is implemented in the drafting of the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan of the “Spettabile Reggenza dei Sette Comuni” Mountain Union (SUMP).
The Plan presents the Sustainable Mobility vision for the Seven Communes Plateau for the next decade and proposes measures in the various areas of intervention, measures aimed at ensuring accessibility to and within the Plateau by reducing private vehicular traffic pressure in urban centers, along roads, and at tourist access points, and by making active and shared mobility a topic of tourism promotion for the territory. There are four strategic lines from which the Plan measures derive, each converging, synergistically and complementarily, to achieve the stated objectives.
Establish an efficient Public Transport network in the Plateau for residents and tourists.
The mobility system of the Plateau, despite having an existing supply network, is characterized mainly by significant private car mobility which, during peak tourist demand periods, seasonal events, and/or holidays, generates significant congestion phenomena concentrated, in particular, on the access roads to the Plateau, with reverberation phenomena also on the secondary network. Therefore, transferring quotas of private transport demand to public transport means streamlining traffic volumes while still ensuring high levels of accessibility along the network and at the main tourist hubs.
To this end, the Plan identifies a backbone line for the Plateau and a set of feeder lines for tourist service within the public transport network, which can relieve the Plateau from the vehicular pressure it is subjected to, especially during particular times of the year.
The functionality of the network also depends on the vehicle traffic access capacity at private mobility access points, i.e., mobility hubs, where modal shift is implemented. These hubs, given their strategic importance, are configured with complementary sustainable mobility services (bike sharing, electric vehicle charging, etc.).
In the configuration of Public Transport services, the Plan advocates the use of alternative fuel vehicles, electric or hydrogen, which will require appropriate configuration also for vehicle charging and storage systems.
Increase the network and services for cycling mobility in the Plateau.
The territorial system of the Plateau has been the subject of significant planning in the field of cycling over the years, the results of which are evident in the related reconstruction of the Programmatic Planning Framework. The area has in fact been the subject of the Cimbrian Alpine Trail for cyclists and pedestrians, articulated in several sections, as well as the Plateau of the Seven Communes cycle path or the Plateau cycle path.
In order to optimize the planning carried out so far, but with the intent to implement the Plateau’s cycle network starting from the existing cycle-pedestrian route of the disused Asiago-Piovene Rocchette railway, the Plan identifies a cycle-pedestrian network whose backbone is constituted by the Plateau greenway, from which the secondary network radiates. The secondary network of the overall design also develops along the paths of the mountain pastures, in order to systemize the landscape identity of the places and the new design of active mobility.
In this network, the Plateau bike sharing service is located, a service designed to give a mobility alternative that can become an experience of the territory. The service, provided with assisted pedaling and in a station-based formula, contributes to implementing the objective of making active mobility a tool for tourism promotion.
Make private transport more efficient through shared mobility and promoting modal shift.
The theme of shared mobility constitutes a keystone in the strategic and design approach of the Plateau’s mobility system.
Although infrastructure interventions of new connection are configured in the evolutionary scenario, the Plateau expects solutions that can be spent even in the short term and that can constitute an effective response to the vehicular pressure that occurs in correspondence with particular dynamics of tourist demand.
In this vision, the theme of private mobility undertakes two design strands, one focused on sharing mobility, the other on the role of private mobility access points and their management. Thus, the Plateau car sharing service aims to build an alternative for Plateau mobility, especially for second home users or for more flexible mobility demand segments. In parallel, the strategic location of interchange parking lots where private transport is attested is configured as the synergistic action to the provision of LPT services aimed at ensuring the modal shift necessary for sustainable accessibility of the Plateau.
Equip the Plateau with an ITS network.
In this multimodal vision, the development of an Intelligent Transport System network is configured as an enabling action for the strategies introduced so far. A traffic monitoring and management network with high interaction capacity with users as well as with service operators is the necessary strategy for the success of the entire Plateau mobility system.
With this expectation, the territorial and internal network for traffic monitoring, for the management of peaks and criticalities, as well as for user information and direction to parking lots and, where possible, to alternative routes has been configured.
Last but not least, the role of Asiago Airport, which can assume a renewed role in the Plateau access system in light of the emerging Advanced Air Mobility.
The analyses were structured according to eight scenarios that differ by day of the week (weekday or Sunday), period (August or Christmas period), and finally, time of day (morning peak hour or evening peak hour). Peak hours were identified from field surveys. These articulated scenarios aim to test the effectiveness and effects of the Plan under the most particular load conditions for the study area. In particular, the mobility of the Plateau presents very different characteristics between weekdays and Sundays, summer days and winter days, and the time of day due to the peculiarities of tourist mobility demand.
The model simulations took into account the main interventions planned in the Plan, including the cycle network and interchange parking lots, considered the main interventions aimed at triggering a modal shift from private vehicles to more ecological transport modes. The cycle network affects internal Plateau travel, favoring bicycle travel for residents and visitors instead of short car trips between the seven municipalities or within individual municipalities. The interchange parking lots, on the other hand, do not have the effect of decreasing car trips but, for interchange trips and therefore entry to or exit from the Plateau, allow for shorter trips because they are interrupted or originate in the periphery of the towns instead of within them, leaving the last mile to ecological transport modes and reducing the traffic, congestion, and pollution effect caused by parking search trips once arrived at the destination.
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