PORT-HINTERLAND CONNECTIVITY: THE ROLE OF INTERMODAL TRANSPORT AND FREIGHT DISTRIBUTION NETWORKS IN PIEDMONT REGION

The strategic position of the Piedmont region and its proximity to the western Ligurian ports offer concrete opportunities for the development of freight traffic. The recent opening of the new semi-automated deep-sea container terminal at the port of Vado Ligure (Savona) - which intends to handle 40% of container traffic by rail when fully operational - and the future opening of the Turin-Lyon railway line (scheduled for 2030) could create the conditions for increasing intermodal transport in this area, which is currently dominated by road haulage. However, infrastructures are not enough: in this Master’s Thesis the criticalities of the intermodal transport in relation to the connections between Piedmont and the Ligurian ports have been identified and analysed, and a comparative model of the costs and times related to the alternatives of road and intermodal transport (road-rail combined transport) has been developed, considering three destinations in Piedmont chosen on the base of the ability to generate traffic of industrial origin. With the aim of relaunching the competitiveness of intermodal transport, in line with the objectives of the Transport White Paper (2011) and the European Green Deal (2020), some scenarios have been evaluated, which foresee both interventions on the demand side and on the supply side: for example, plant upgrades in the Turin-Orbassano logistics platform as well as improvements on the Turin-Savona railway line and on the rolling stock, through the use of new generation high performance trains finally also for freight. Lastly, a mixed model of intermodal traffic management is proposed.