Sustainable Land Transport from the Point of View of Modern Society

Dear Colleagues,

In the ‘50s, ‘60s, and 70s in United States, in most European countries and, possibly to a lesser extent, in Japan -which, as a first world country, had already developed the concept of high-speed trains -the main message that the population received from the media was something along these lines: “If you haven’t got an automobile, you are not part of society”.

Consequently, starting from ‘90s and the new century, motorization, at a private level, enabled the majority of people to drive, saturating thereafter these markets with automobiles and creating a subsequent contamination - with a neutral meaning - in Asian countries such as China and India, in addition to South American countries and, more recently, those in Africa. At the same time, the automobile and the use of oil-derived fuels have been for decades the most influential industrial and economic businesses in the world. What’s next? Electrification? It shows some evident limitations in comparison with traditional engines. Renouncing the automobile? Nowadays, we may certainly and more profitably use high-speed trains where available, automated metros, rope-driven automated people-movers, public transport, and micro-mobility, abandoning the personal car; however, automobiles and light-duty vehicles still remain necessary for many occasions, especially for mixed transport, door-to-door mobility, children-related travels, for last mile distribution and logistics. May we move and transport freight by using each transport mode according to its main features? This would imply mobility-as-service and logistics-as-a-service concepts. This Special Issue is aims to explicitly address “What’s next?” from the land transport point of view on the bases of present transport planning research and technological evolution.

A more extended description

Unsurprisingly, the means used to transport people and freight have evolved to a great extent over the last 100-150 years; historical needs and urban development have led humans to first use and exploit animals and then motorized vehicles in order to significantly increase the speed of movement. Besides this increase in speed, the space path has increased proportionally maintaining thereafter a constant average “travel time budget” which, for the time being, has been considered one hour per day. This concept can be simplified by considering that people generally travel many more kilometers than in the past and at higher speeds, but the same amount of time per day is dedicated to moving, for many and varied reasons. For example, rail transport, has invested a great deal of funds toward increasing speeds since the 1970s, both by raising the speed itself on existing lines through the introduction of tilting trains and by constructing ad hoc lines for high-speed trains (as led by Japan first, mainly in the ‘70s). In Japan, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and numerous other countries, this has resulted in increased traffic and an enlarged area of influence to 600–800 km as larger distances are covered at higher speeds.

A limit to the growth in the speed of cars -an increase to which the diffusion of highways and motorways has led, mainly during the ‘60s to ‘90s - can now be associated with goals of higher safety and, in some cases, with the spread of ITS applications for identifying infringements of speed limits, even in the absence of police forces.

Finally, we need to underline that the transport sector is mainly characterized by the use of distributed energy vehicles, with the exception, in general terms, of those systems which operate on tracks or fixed installations, such as railways, undergrounds, and cable-driven automated people movers in urban contexts. In most cases, the energy source is combusted directly in engines onboard vehicles- be they on road, sea, inland waterways, or air - in a fuel tank. The shift from such a system to one characterized by partially or totally electrically powered vehicles which use electricity - generated, as much as possible, through renewable sources -would produce strong decarbonization of the whole transport sector, with several related effects mainly on the environment and economics, along with some issues that need to be carefully taken into consideration from the social and, to some extent, economic point of view.

Expected papers

We may therefore envisage, as possible subjects for the expected submissions:

1. Papers on the continental rail network, when available, made up of medium–large size cities in a hierarchical co-modal network:

• Megacities lean towards burning of land and depreciation of already used land;
• “Stopping” the use of land for construction, while valorizing urban heritage and hierarchical co-modal transport networks wherever they exist;
• A high-speed rail network for connecting medium-sized cities;
• Air/train HUBs for integrating very long distances by airplanes with a continental rail network.

2. A network of rail terminals (inland–ports–industries):

• Freight EMUs (electromotor units) to be introduced;
• HDV (heavy-duty vehicles) with ICE (internal combustion engine) and PHEV/HEV (plug-in hybrid electric vehicles/hybrid electric vehicles) for mixed use.

3. Flexible co-modality in cities (the first feasible step against global warming).
4. PHEV (Plug-in hybrid electric automobiles):

• Electric vehicles where the depot or parking is fixed each night;
• Sharing (public transport included);
• MaaS (Mobility as a Service), when applicable, including micro-mobility (bicycles, scooters, segways, and the like), when applicable;
• LaaS (Logistics as a Service), when applicable.

Prof. Dr. Bruno Dalla Chiara
Guest Editor

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• electrification
• hierarchical transport network
• co-modality
• high-speed rail network
• intermodal terminals
• hybridization of powertrains
• rope-driven automated people movers
• micro-mobility