URBANITE General

Now, we head for our final stop; through the "Scandinavian - Mediterranean" corridor we cross Europe from north to south and arrive in the City of Messina. The metropolitan area of Messina is one of the most extended areas of the south of Italy and the first in Sicily and counts over 620.000 citizens. The city counts over 250.000 citizens and most of them are commuters between Sicily and Calabria regions.

Geographical peculiarities (the geographical shape of the city of Messina is stretched for 32 km beside the Tyrrhenian Sea, and tight between its hills and the sea) and its role of main connections between Sicily and the Italian peninsula has a huge impact on mobility in the city of Messina.

The local transport of the city of Messina consists of sea transport (hydrofoil and ferry boat fleets) and land transport (buses, tramway and rail transports network), operated by public and private companies. One of the main issues that affect both kinds of services (sea and land transport) is the lack of interoperability among the different departments of the Municipality that are involved for different reasons in the management of mobility.

What is Messina aiming for?

Concerning mobility, the main challenge of the city of Messina for the upcoming years is twofold: on the one hand, to build mobility services able to fulfil the needs of citizens, dwellers, commuters and visitors, allowing them to move around and through the city seamlessly; on the other hand, the challenge consists in optimising the management and interaction among the different mobility and monitoring systems and services available in the urban area of the city of Messina reducing the waste of resources and costs for the Public Administration.

Particular attention is paid to light mobility (e.g. extension of the cycle network with new bike lines and links between the centre and suburbs zones of the city to spread the use of bicycle mobility) and pedestrians (definition of an integrated system of pedestrian areas and paths).

The role of Disruptive Technologies.

The different Departments of the Municipality can benefit from a unique data-access point to their data, avoiding the complication generated by the need of access scattered data sources (for instance, in the case of data hosted and managed in different repositories for the different departments). This will simplify the discovery of and access to the data needed by the decision-makers. In this context, tools to facilitate the connection to data sources (also from third parties) is vital. Data is the fuel of any activity related to analysis, simulation, etc. The more information is available (not only in terms of amount but also in terms of variety), the more accurate and precise can be the analysis and simulations.

In the management of urban mobility, analysis and simulations will support decision-makers in the identification of potential solutions (such as multimodal paths and possible intervention to increase public safety) and hidden problems (such as related to public transportation and for planning maintenance interventions of road and public transportation vehicles).

Customisable dashboards to represent the information a decision-maker needs will allow to obtain a clearer view of the status of mobility, supporting the decision-making process in the most appropriate manner.

Finally, the possibility to share information (such as data, results of analysis/simulations, map layers, charts, graphs, etc.) with people working in the same or a different department will improve the collaboration and the efficiency of the decision-making process, overcoming inefficient communication and information silos.