Urban Ropeway as Public Transport Service and Tourist Development Opportunity

The spread of private motorization has produced significant impacts on the territorial system from an economic, social and environmental point of view, focusing attention on the problems of interactions between transport and land use and the related effects on sustainable development. Useful innovative solutions for making the urban context more sustainable with adequate quality standards can allow a more balanced reorganization of the transport system and a rearrangement of the Transport/Land Use system. Many cities are moving towards cable transport systems as an alternative to private transport in urban areas, integrated with other collective transport systems, ensuring environmental eco-sustainability, substantial cost reduction and energy saving. The cable systems (ropeways, funiculars) represent an opportunity for hilly zones, being a possibility to connect areas with reduced accessibility. Today these systems not only represent a solution for accessibility problems but have great potential from a tourist point of view; in fact, they can be a key-tool for enhancing sites with great urban interest. The paper proposes an analysis of aerial cable transport systems in urban areas, considering the potential impacts on local public transport services and on the tourism sector. The case study of a ropeway project to connect an urban area with a hill having a strong tourist vocation in a city in Southern Italy is presented. In a unified Transport/Land Use vision, hypotheses of environmental requalification and integrated tourist supply of the linked sites are formulated.