REGIONAL INFORMATION:
Emilia-Romagna / Italy

Working together with tourist operators and local stakeholders the project developed a Castle Route including the castles Verucchio, Montebello, San Leo and Montefiore. The integrated tourism concept gave the tourism actors the possibility to exploit synergies of a wider brand for marketing and promotion.

After having created a “vision” which included among others the aim of the hinterland autonomy for tourism and including specific targeted tourism product, the guiding theme of “fantasy based on a medieval world ” was found as a connection of all four castles along the route.   

The efforts were kicked off during an event integrating all four castles, but at the same time giving each castle its own theme and activities according to its stories, legends and particular interest. In Verucchio a creative writing workshop as well as a comic school course took place, in Montebello nightly readings of stories were offered, while in San Leo people had the opportunity in alchemic cooking classes and in Montefiore theatre animations were shown.

For the future the brand “Fantastic Castles” should be further elaborated, a website was already built (www.fantasticicastelli.com)  as tourism portal of the four castles and the surrounding inlands. Additionally a single integrated ticket at a special price for the four castles will be issued and offered.  

Objective

Contribute to the integration of a multimodal transport system through actions for development of cycling (bike rental, bike path) connected to the utilization of the train.

Activities

The pilot project of Ravenna consists in the realization of two major investments:

– The setting up of a free bike rental station close to the railway station of Cervia: In order to realize this activity following was purchased: bicycles, anti theft devices, repairing kits, helmets for kids, devices to carry kids and luggage. A non-slip platform with steel railings was built in order to facilitate the access of bicycles in the free rental. Some promotional panels and placards were installed on the external walls in order to indicate the free bike rental.

– The completion of the signposting along the bike path connecting the cities of Cervia and Ravenna: The road signs were designed, purchased and installed along the cycle path from Cervia’s Station to Ravenna’s Station.

Investments

The sum of expenditure incurred / committed for the pilot project is EUR 89.730,95 (policy definition; purchase bicycles and several equipment.

• Promotion of the pilot project
• Management service park bicycles
• Design
• Purchase and installation of road signs for the natural cycle paths

Investment: EUR 28.934,73
Promotion costs: EUR 19.148,40
External expertise: EUR 41.647,82

Background information

Parma has bought 9 new articulated trolleybuses for the trolleybus exhibition in Parma in March 2011. These trolleybuses are equipped with so-called supercaps, high-capacity on-board electric energy storages. These supercaps provide the opportunity of an energy saving potential of up to 30% of the traction electric energy. However, technical experience is still not mature and only limited real case studies are available. Please see an example of such a supercap on the following picture:

The TROLLEY project tested and evaluated the potential for the reduction of energy consumption in the operation of its trolleybus fleet from April 2012 on. The purchase, the assembly and the evaluation of the supercaps will be documented. The purchasing of the new trolleybuses and the supercaps was promoted extensively during March to April 2012 including the promotion of the TROLLEY project and the developed the TROLLEY campaign slogan “ebus – the smart way!”. Costs for one supercap is EUR 39.000,- (VAT included). Thus the partial investment coming from the TROLLEY project is approx. EUR 11.111,- per supercap.

Activities

Accordingly , the first part of the accompanying Output "Transnational Manual on Advanced Energy Storage" (on purchase and assembly) was finished during reporting period 2 and will be extended with future other examples of trolleybuses equipped with supercaps. The outline or content respectively of this core output was discussed and planned during a Kick-off workshop with all project partners in Parma in October 2010. The discussion within a so-called "World Café" ensured input from all partners in terms of the definition of the core output and ideas for input.

Furthermore, the implementation, testing and evaluation of the invested supercaps took place from April to May 2012. The results shall be compared to other evaluation results available for energy savings through supercaps (e.g. Public Transport Operator from Milan agreed to make its test results available for a comparison during the 1st TROLLEY City-Industry-Summit in Parma in October 2010). Therefore, the diagnostic tool that can measure how much energy is absorbed and released by the supercaps is studied currently to outline the evaluation concept and realisation.

Transnational added value

The realised investment by TEP in Parma is a real technology highlight in on-board storage and recovery of energy. Parma will be an international “test bed” for this technology and there is big interest on the supercaps implementation since hybrid buses and trams may also benefit from this technology across Europe.

The pilot investment in TROLLEY will help to optimise the energy use of public transport operators operating trolleybuses and/ or other electric driven clean vehicles and will serve as a real tangible showcase to be taken-up. The results of the investment realisation, this means purchase, assembly and evaluation of the supercaps will be disseminated via E-training and E-learning modules as well as in the core output "Transnational Manual on Advanced Energy Storage". These dissemination activities will provide know how on the implementation, the management and the testing of this state-of-the art technology not only to the involved TROLLEY partners but also to all existing trolleybus networks in other cities of CE and beyond and will put trolleybuses into a new light. By this, all decision makers across Europe will benefit from the results of this investment by getting a fundamental basis for decision on this technology.

Results

In case of a positive testing result of energy storage on-board of trolleybuses with super caps, Parma will gradually equip its whole fleet with this technology. The state-of-the-art technology of these new vehicles including supercaps, which will store energy regenerated during braking, to be used in subsequent acceleration for reducing the overall energy consumption. There are different direct and indirect financial beneficiaries from this investment. The transport operator installing the device will be able to reduce its energy costs. The trolleybus will become even more competitive in terms of costs with other transport modes. Besides, reduced energy consumption means reduced external costs. For passengers there is an indirect effect since cost savings contribute to stable fares.

This local investment enables a smooth and reliable operation of trolleybuses in Parma ans reduces energy consumption whereby public transportation becomes even more energy efficient and cleaner.

Within this pilot action in Parma, the most interesting result states a reduction of 26,24% energy consumption of trolley buses with supercabs installed than buses without it.

The main objectives of Rimini Riutilizza! are: to higher the quantity of re-used products within the Province of Rimini; to lower the number of disposed products; to offer more re-used products to the market of people in need; to offer a new service to the citizens of the territory.