Papers by Francesco De Fabiis
Case Studies on Transport Policy
It is still unclear whether autonomous vehicles will mainly bring benefits or not to the sustaina... more It is still unclear whether autonomous vehicles will mainly bring benefits or not to the sustainable development of people's mobility. Opinion among various stakeholders diverge since autonomous driving may have different use cases, and potential impacts will depend on how consumers will deal with it: following an ownership-based or a consumption-based approach, using autonomous vehicles as individual (as a private car), shared (as a taxi service), or collective (as a public transport service) means of transport. This paper aims at shedding light on future mobility scenarios by investigating travelers’ expectations, attitudes, and intentions towards adopting autonomous vehicles. The research method involves the estimation of hybrid choice models based on data collected through a Stated Intention survey. Results of an exploratory study conducted in Italy show that the willingness-to-adopt autonomous vehicles can be explained by both observable and latent traits of individuals, giving evidence of different policy implications. Moreover, the desire to experiment autonomous driving is on average very high, but consumers are more willing to share or ride autonomous vehicles, rather than purchasing them for personal use.
Sustainability
Active modes can play a key role in the transition toward sustainable urban mobility, and transpo... more Active modes can play a key role in the transition toward sustainable urban mobility, and transport systems should be designed to support and incentivize them. For instance, walking accessibility to main urban centralities is a factor to pay attention to, as well as the way in which pedestrians perceive the characteristics of the infrastructure and the surrounding environment should also be considered. This study proposes a method for computing a walkability index of the paths for accessing transport nodes (e.g., railway station). The index is based on individuals’ perception of walkable infrastructure features (e.g., kerbside width, presence of urban furniture, greenery, etc.). It allows having a more realistic view of the catchment area of the node and to identify policies for improving pedestrian accessibility. The method has been validated using an ad-hoc survey in the area of the Milano Rogoredo railway station (Italy). The map of the estimated walkability indexes is consistent...
Case Studies on Transport Policy
Società Italiana di Politica dei Trasporti (SIPOTRA), 2021
Tema. Journal of Land Use, Mobility and Environment, 2020
Given the short time to produce the volume, the Editorial Board of TeMA Journal carried out the s... more Given the short time to produce the volume, the Editorial Board of TeMA Journal carried out the scientific quality audit of the contributions published in this Special Issue. The cover image is a photo collage of some cities during the Covid-19 pandemic quarantine (March 2020
European Transport Research Review, 2021
Introduction The COVID-19 emergency and the cities lockdown have had a strong impact on transport... more Introduction The COVID-19 emergency and the cities lockdown have had a strong impact on transport and mobility. In particular, travel demand has registered an unprecedented overall contraction, dramatically dropping down with peaks of - 90%-95% passengers for public transport (PT). During the re-opening phase, demand is gradually resuming the levels before the crisis, although some structural changes are observed in travel behaviour, and containment measures to reduce the risk of contagion are still being applied, affecting transport supply. Objective This paper aims at assessing to what extent keeping a one-meter interpersonal distancing on-board trains is sustainable for public transport companies. Method The analysis is based on travel demand forecasting models applied to two case-studies in Italy: a suburban railway line and a High-speed Rail (HSR) line, differentiated by demand characteristics (e.g. urban vs. ex-urban) and train access system (free access vs. reservation requir...
Sustainability, 2023
Investments in transportation infrastructure have been identified as one of the main factors to p... more Investments in transportation infrastructure have been identified as one of the main factors to promote territorial economic growth. However, appraisal methods currently used in the planning practice do not consider spatial economic distributional effects, ignoring who within a given region would receive greater economic benefits from an investment than others (and eventually who might receive worse). In this paper, a modelling framework is proposed to assess the spatial economic impacts of transportation infrastructure investments; the method combines spatial regressions with transportation accessibility analysis, assuming Gross Domestic Product per Capita variation as a proxy of the economic growth. The application to the case study is related to the Adriatic and Ionian region, which includes both some EU (Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, and Greece) and non-EU countries (Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, North Macedonia, and Kosovo) and is characterized by huge disparities in terms of infrastructural assets. The models allow us to both statistically prove the importance of spatial modelling specifications and to forecast economic impacts that would be generated by ongoing infrastructure investment plans for the reconstruction of the road and railway networks in the region; this highlighted where current economic disparities tend to be bridged up, i.e., mainly along the foreseen extensions of the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) corridors, and where not.
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Papers by Francesco De Fabiis