Project type                                                           Sustainable mobility

Promoter                                                                REMEDIO Project

Collaborators                                                         ARPAV and Treviso Municipality

Start date                                                                2017

Funding                                                                  Interreg-MED

Website                                                                   Environmental monitoring campaign in Treviso

High-density areas surrounding city centres with commercial and directional roads often suffer from traffic jams, pollution and other derived negative consequences. The main objective of the activity was to assess local environmental condition and to validate the Integrated Modelling Tool (IMT) of REMEDIO, fine-tuning its capability to detect the effectiveness of soft mobility actions in high congested roads.

The IMT is a multi-thematic modelling suite designed to test and evaluate the effectiveness of mobility solutions (soft actions). The environmental data collected in Treviso was used for the validation and fine-tuning of some of the modules integrating the tool.

The field monitoring was deployed  from 19th October to 14th November 2017, along the pilot area of Treviso, the so-called ”West Road” (Viale della Repubblica), by the Environment Prevention and Protection Regional Agency of Veneto (ARPAV), in charge of controlling air and noise pollution and in collaboration with the Municipality of Treviso, in charge of measuring  the traffic flows.

One mobile monitoring station collected data about air pollutants as NO/NO2/NOx, SO2, CO, O3, BTEX, PM10, PM2.5, heavy metals and PAH, while a phonometer assessed  the noise levels (Leq) and two doppler radars  measured the traffic flows.

REMEDIO PROJECT

REMEDIO attempts to regenerate mixed-use MED urban communities congested by traffic through innovative low carbon mobility solutions.

High-density areas surrounding the city centres with commercial and directional roads often suffer from traffic jam. Beyond pollution, there are several consequences associated to traffic congestion like the risk to become a wound within the city connectivity system or a factor of additional economic crisis and even social exclusion.

The main objective of the project is to strengthen the capacity of cities to use low carbon transport systems and include them in their urban plans by testing existing mobility solutions, through an assessment tool and participatory governance schemes.

The main project outputs are: (a) The creation of an Integrated Modelling Tool (IMT) for low carbon mobility solutions assessment (b) To set a new participative governance model for roads of middle-sized Mediterranean cities, based on horizontal condominium (c) To pilot activities on urban low carbon measures (d) Develop awareness and educational paths on sustainable urban mobility behaviour.

• The road reached the maximum transport load (transportation capacity equal to 2015 levels).
• Peak hours between 8 am to 6pm, with a maximum at 11 am.
• Air pollutant combustion tracers (NO/NO2/NOx, SO2, CO, O3, BTEX), both recorded at high (1 minute) and also “normal ” frequency (1 hour) neither showed a consistent correlation with traffic flows nor a strong difference in magnitude with the corresponding air ambient levels measured by the nearby background monitoring station within the urban area of Treviso.
• This apparently contradictory results can be explained by two main factors:
  • the dominant role played by the meteorological conditions greatly affecting pollutant dispersion emitted from road traffic; in fact, during the central hour of the day when peak traffic flows happens, the increasing dispersion capacity of the atmosphere is “flattening” pollutant concentrations making it difficult to distinguish an ‘hot spot’ from a ‘background’ site;
  • the presence of multiple sources of pollutant affecting a spread urban area like Treviso is greatly contributing to raise the pollutant concentration levels at background sites, practically reducing or overriding the gap with the hot spots of the town.