Reducing the access of private vehicles in the Limited Traffic Zone

Summary

The Municipality of Perugia intends to improve the management of private vehicles allowed to access the Limited Traffic Zone (LTZ). This strategy will improve the quality of life, reduce traffic levels, reduce the pollution and energy consumption, and increase safety and security, by researching information about criminal evidence.

Implementing sustainable mobility

The analysis of the best locations of the new gates has been performed after the reorganization of the LTZ access and permit regulations. A tender was organized for selecting the company which will implementation of the infrastructure. The winner company is completing a revision of the project that will be delivered in early spring 2011. A first gate has been already installed and the rest of the gates implementation starts after the relevant permissions are received from all the local and national entities (eg Historical National Heritage Authority). After the installation of the new gates, the monitoring centre (SITU) will be updated and the existing software upgraded, in order to monitor the traffic flows. In parallel, an awareness campaign for citizens, in collaboration with local Police, will be carried out. The possibility to use the gates as a control on access/egress will give the City of Perugia a more accurate information about criminal events, thus contributing to safety and security improvements.

The objective of this measure is to better control the access and especially the egress from the LTZ. The control will be made by installing 12 additional gates (4 for access and 8 for egress). A new software system will calculate the length of stay within the LTZ. All these elements will help in revising the origin/destination matrix and thus to improve the policies for the city centre management. 

Progress

The Municipality of Perugia has had a Limited Traffic Zone since mid 80s and has already implemented, since 2002, a LTZ access control system using automatic gates. The gates were installed at the main access points to LTZ. Due to the fact that the system was not extended to all access points vehicle, users were able to bypass the system, creating a potential security problem, mainly on secondary access points or by entering the LTZ from uncontrolled egress gates. By reviewing European strategies regarding city centre access control, and in accord with Italian Transport Ministry approved technical options; the measure will provide for the installation of 12 additional gates in the historic LTZ (4 for access and 8 for egress) to reduce traffic levels and pollution and to increase safety and security. In order to to improve the mobility management, a platform to control and manage the traffic in the LTZ it will be developed. This platform will study a unique tracking system for different categories of users (lorries, Public Transport /Touristic buses and private vehicles).

Outcomes

The measure is not proposed to change the current regulatory road, or to change the times of opening and closing of LTZ. Therefore a decrease of accesses, and hence traffic, is not expected. It is expected that vehicles will be compliant with the time of exit which will influence the traffic flows with an immediate impact on the the traffic planning. Only by implementing a system such as road pricing, a real traffic reduction in the LTZ is expected. The result would thus depend on several factors: the operating hours of the road pricing system, the cost, the exceptions and limitations based on the EURO class of vehicle and the management of permissions for residents and for all categories that do benefit. In any case, the increase of control will reduce the illegal access in the not controlled areas.