Improving public transport by rail: the case of public transport by trainin Calabria, Italy

© Association for European Transport and contributors 2008 1

IMPROVING PUBLIC TRANSPORT BY RAIL. THE CASE OF PUBLIC TRANSPORT BY TRAIN IN CALABRIA, ITALY

Francis Cirianni, Domenico Ianno’ Dept. of Computer Science, Mathematics, Electronics and Transportation Faculty of Engineering - Mediterranea University, Reggio Calabria – Italy

Santo Marazzita

Ferrovie della Calabria s.r.l., Calabria - Italy 1 INTRODUCTION The company Ferrovie della Calabria is the concessionaire of regional rail and bus transport in the area of Calabria, serving often as sole public transport link between many small towns and villages and the main cities, and the interchanges for the national rail network, with a significant modal share for school and work trips. The company, which previously was publicly managed, is on route to become a PLC company, whose property is still state owned. Having started as a railway company at the beginning of the last century, it converted many routes to road transport during the fifties and sixties, but never abandoning completely its original rail service, still at the date owning and operating a service on narrow gauge for a total of 231 km of track, in a variety of land morphologies and conditions, with stretches in adhesion are followed from significant slopes served by rack. A new management and a new transport approach, oriented to improving the level of service, and to modernize a system which was not corresponding in its formal and functional aspects, pursuing the core transport mode of the company, on the assumption that regional rail traffic pursues the aim of connecting urban and suburban destinations comfortably, with a strong alternative to congested roads using it own infrastructure. In addition to an intact infrastructure, comfortable and cost-favourable vehicles are a vital prerequisite for the acceptance and use of regional traffic as an alternative to the car. This as led to an investment for the renewal of the rail fleet. The upgrading of the rolling stock is based on a modular vehicle concept to optimally meet the various requirements in terms of track gauge, structural clearance and transport capacity of the line. The service strategy implies instead the adaptation of timetables to user needs, implementation of a new approach of punctuality, modernization of the company image and improvements in information and customer service. The paper presents a description of the existing situation, the different actions derived from the strategies for change, the implementation of these actions and the first results obtained. 2 REGIONAL RAILWAYS IN CALABRIA The Ferrovie della Calabria (FdC), born as Calabro-Lucane Railroads (FCL) were conceived as "mountain Railroads" with narrow gauge. Their history is


closely related with the economic and social conditions of the territory in which they were developed. The qualification "mountain Railroads" is related to the prevailing characteristics of the territory which they crossed. The route difficulty, justified the choice in favour of the narrow gauge and the low commercial speeds (around 30 km/h); in many links the uneven altimetry exceeded 60/1000 and the presence of curves of reduced ray reduced the design speed. On the ramps where the gradient exceeds 100/1000 rack engines were used. The spreading in use of coach and road transport, private and public, of the sixties led to a fall in the use of rail transport. Railroads, in neglected conditions, became target of a policy of cuts, of the so-called "dead branches". In the arc of two decades the FCL saw the closure of braches often useful to communication. The FLC railway company adapted to times, becoming a company of mixed transport, on road and rail, equipping themselves of a park of several hundreds of buses, used for Bustitution, replacing the train service with a bus service on the lines which were non considered economically viable. In 1989 the company Ferrovie Calabro-Lucane was divided in two separate companies, one in charge of the lines that connect centres of the regions of Puglia and Basilicata, and the other in control of all the services in the region of Calabria.

Figure 1 - historical picture of first diesel engine railcar

All the lines of the Ferrovia della Calabria are narrow gauge, of 950 mm. Among the advantages of narrow gauge railways there is the lower building costs, due to being lighter in construction, using smaller cars and locomotives (figure 2) as well as smaller bridges, smaller tunnels (smaller structure gauge) and tighter curves. Narrow gauge is thus often used in mountainous terrain, where the savings in civil engineering work can be substantial. It is also used in sparsely populated areas where the potential demand is too low for broader gauge railways to be


economically viable. At the age when the railway was designed, the choice was not between a narrow gauge railroad and a standard gauge one, but between a narrow gauge railroad and none at all.

Figure 2 - quoted prospect of the new railcar

Disadvantages of narrow gauge railroads are that they cannot interchange equipment such as freight and passenger cars freely with the standard gauge railroads they link with, unless they exchange bogies. That means that narrow gauge lines have a built-in cost of transshipping people and freight to the mainline railway system. The cost of transshipment can be a substantial drain on the finances of a railroad because it involves expensive and time consuming manual labour or substantial capital expenditure. A solution to the problem of transshipment is bogie exchange between cars. Another problem with narrow gauge railroads is that they lack room to grow - their cheap construction was bought at the price of being engineered only for their initial traffic demands. While a standard or broad gauge railroad could more easily be upgraded to handle heavier, faster traffic, many narrow gauge railroads are impractical to improve. Narrow gauge trains are not able to run at nearly the same high speeds as those networks with broader gauges, because of the reduced stability of narrower gauge. It must also be said that in Calabria the orography has influenced the layout of the track, to an extent that, in terms of speed limitation, the gauge width is not influential. Narrow gauge railways in Italy are (or were) mainly build with 950 mm (3 ft 1⅜ in) gauge. In Sardinia, a network of narrow gauge lines was built, to complement the standard-gauge main network which covers the main cities and ports. The lines which are still present, are between Cagliari-Mandas-Isili, Sassari-


Alghero, Sassari-Sorso Macomer-Nuoro, and still carry regular passenger services, operated by Ferrovie della Sardegna. In Sicily, the Ferrovia Circumetnea runs in the area of Catania and the Mount Etna, and the Ferrovia Circumvesuviana providing a regular service between Naples and Sorrento, and around the base of Mt. Vesuvius. 3 GENERAL STRATEGIES AND AIMS

3.1 Analysis of the current system

It has been since the late 60’s that meaningful resources were last spent in Calabria in the railway field, and in the last fifty years it can be said that it is just recently that a policy of investment on the infrastructure and on the vehicles has been adopted. The suppression of rail services (figure 3) went to all advantage of road services, reducing railway traffic, at the expense of efficiency and safety of road system.

Figure 3 - Ferrovie della Calabria rail lines - existing in red– closed in yellow

From 1930 to 2007 the length of the narrow gauge rail network of Calabria has been reduced from 437 to 225 km, with the abolition of 4 lines (table 1). With the exception of a short branch of 2,650 Km, the layout is single track. The service offered on the network is of 1.251.797,635 trains*km/year, with a capacity of 143.986.500 pax*km.


Table 1 - lines in service in the year 1930 and in the year 2007 Line year

1930 2007 Lagonegro – Spezzano Albanese Terme 147 closed Cosenza – Catanzaro Lido 114 114 Pedace – Camigliatello – S.Giovanni in Fiore 51 68 Vibo Valentia – Mileto 28 closed Soverato – Chiaravalle Centrale 23 closed Gioia Tauro – Cinquefrondi 32 32 Gioia Tauro – Palmi – Sinopoli S.Procopio 27 11 Marina di Gioiosa – Mammola 15 closed TOTAL (km) 437 225

The rail service between Catanzaro Lido and Cosenza is differentiated also for the morphology of the environment crossed by the railway, therefore some branches of the line are served by rack rail, to overcome the steep climb. In the 2007 a new service program and time table divided the line Catanzaro Lido – Cosenza in three branches. The Catanzaro Lido - Catanzaro City metropolitan service has the presence of the rack line: the service is carried out with 10 rack railcars, eight of which in service. The frequency is of a train every thirty minutes, with the exception of morning and noon peak hours where the frequency is of a train every ten minutes. The line between Cosenza and Catanzaro Lido is the most important operating line, for dimensions and for passenger demand, as it links two of the main cities of Calabria, with 114 Km of length and 39 stations and stops, at an average distance of 3,2 km, the commercial speed is of 32 km/h.

Figure 4 - The FdC lines and interchanges with FS


The service interchanges with that one of the FS, State Railroads (standard gauge) which run national and regional services (figure 4), and the FS track which runs along the coast, thus Ferrovie della Calabria running a service of adduction, penetrating in the internal territories, not covered from the FS network. The rolling stock currently in service is composed from railcars of the type Fiat Breda, group 120, 350 and 400 bidirectional diesels of which 8 rack, and 5 conducted. 50 passengers to seat per vehicle, which become 114 including standing passengers, with the maximum of 228 passenger per rack formation, coupling two cars, and 456 places per standard traction formation (4 cars). 4 SPECIFIC STRATEGIES AND AIMS The innovation which is being introduced is on two levels, the infrastructural one and the service level. The new system is based on an infrastructure composed substantially by the same network, with the introduction of new vehicles. A Plan has been developed for the reduction of the travel times and for the increase of the travel comfort, which requires works of modernization of the line, and a general review and rectification of the track layout, where possible, as works of adaptation of the technological safety systems. The development plan introduces two new lines with a profitable demand, which are: • the new link between Catanzaro S. Maria and Germaneto, were the

Regional Council administration Citadel is being developed. It is estimated that the potential demand is on 1.000.000 Pax/year.

• the new link between Cosenza – Rende – and the University of Cosenza, a campus with a population of 30.000 students. It is estimated that the potential demand is on 2.000.000 Pax/year.

The strategies proposed on the service level, have the main purpose of improving the characteristics of mobility on public transport in terms of efficiency, effectiveness and quality of the offered service. Such purpose can be obtained aiming to the reorganization and integration with other services, so as to: • improve the reliability of the service by means of a regular service,

simplifying the distances, the terminal stops and synchronizing the departure times;

• increase the level of service by means of the reduction of the waiting times and the transfer times.

The proposed plan is based on the realization of a network system composed around the principal directories of traffic, and in a position to connect the main centres of attraction (railway stations, airport, central business and commercial district, town centre, institutional buildings, stadium and sport centres, university campus), and therefore to improve mobility through the creation of stable and reliable connections between structures as the railway stations, coach station and airport.


4.1 Investments on the network and staff re-qualification

The investment program for the modernization of the rail network has engaged 20,000,000 euro to be invested in the next five years. Infrastructural works will be to rectify the track layout and maintenance of the lines, including fettling and track re-profiling and alignment. On the rolling stock a further 21,660,000 euro has been used, to acquire 5 rack engines, which will be in service from June 2009, with an option for further ten at standard adhesion. The introduction of different transport technologies, and the adoption of new security systems require actions of infrastructural renewal, with the reorganization of the yard and workshops of Cosenza and Catanzaro, and formation of the workforce. The policy of re-qualifying invests the sector of safety and of security, with a program of conversion form manual to automatic control processes and use of IT technologies. The investments on safety regard the updating of the central train dispatcher office (DCO), communication system and LED signalling.

4.2 Reorganization of the rail service

The reorganization of the rail service follows the steps: 1) definition of the service network (bus routes and rail lines) and hierarchy of

the components, with the localization of the main network, the secondary network, and the interchange nodes;

2) quantification of the frequencies of the services; 3) verification of the level of service offered and eventual modification of the

network. The plan proposed is based on the realization of a leading system of transport (main network) along the principal directories of traffic, in a position to connect the main centres of attraction. It is constituted from a high capacity line, defined from the analysis of the current mobility demand. The secondary network is constituted from lines that allow the most direct connection between the fractions and/or the suburban areas and the main interchange nodes, located on the edges of the central city area served from the main network, and the lines in the central area that serve as adduction shuttle to the main network. The service on the secondary network is based on a bus service scheme. Regarding the current system, with uncoordinated services for different lines and timetables not calibrated in function of travel demand, the proposed system adopts higher frequency on the main lines, and medium - low frequency on the secondary lines, designed on the estimated demand. The success in the reorganization of the service depends from the adoption of some measures that we define “collateral”. Indeed, it appears obvious that the supply of public service assumed unilaterally from the Public Transport Company, not supported from actions promoting Public Transport, e.g. discouraging private car trips to the areas of greater attraction, will not meet the required goals. To aim for of an improvement of the mobility and transport system implies the reduction of car usage, and considering constant the demand, the reduction of private transport implies a modal shift to public transport,


therefore the actions proposed consist in an improvement of Public Transport services. Furthermore the use of rail transport implies the shift from road use to rail use, reducing road congestion and improves road safety. In order to make the most of improvements in each individual transport mode, transport planning should be integrated between all the modes. So, for example, a passenger should be able to buy a ticket covering the whole of the journey, even if that includes a change from train to bus, even if run by different companies. The planning of the Transport System includes a mix of measures designed to encourage people to use public transport ("pull" measures) and, where appropriate, measures to reduce the use of private cars ("push" measures). Push-measures can be divided into financial instruments, and technical and regulatory constraints. Also the effective integration of individual modes and public transport operations is essential. In particular, the construction of interconnecting transport infrastructure, multi-modal terminals, park and ride facilities, and the establishment of an information and traffic management system, incorporating the use of IT technologies, which allows for the reassessment of travel choices before and throughout the journey. Better coordination of sub-systems such as bus and rail operations is essential for fulfilling the potential offered by public transport. This applies to both hard-ware (terminals) and software (combined ticketing, information systems, tariff-systems) improvements. Fare systems are often complex and the method of payment too restrictive, for example, allowing only prepaid tickets, not available on the vehicle, or requiring exact fares. An integrated and harmonised ticketing system makes travelling easier for passengers as they are able to purchase a ticket at the start of their journey which is valid throughout. Where such systems have been introduced, this has also been accompanied by increases in use of public transport. 5 MAIN TECHNICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE NEW CONVOYS

5.1 General Information

The Ferrovie della Calabria have acquired from Stadler Rail five two unit railcars with diesel - electric engines. The fleet will begin presumably the service in the late summer of 2009. The main characteristics of the railcars are: • the cases are lowered, with access plan of 450 millimetres from rail plan

and therefore the ideal height for the platforms of the stations of Ferrovie della Calabria to allow improved passenger accessibility to the train. Access is sufficiently comfortable also from platforms with heights of 250 millimetres from rail plan;

• improved accessibility in the cars, to allow movement and comfort for disabled and physically impaired passengers onboard;

• air conditioning for a greater comfort of passengers and staff; • surveillance systems based on CCTV and data recording systems for a

greater security on board;


• automatic fire prevention system in the technical and in the passenger compartments;

• diesel-electrical engine transmission, for a better control of the tensile stress transmitted to the wheels without vibrations and torque laps;

• traction control on single axis (1 inverter distinguished for each un-sync traction motor for a better exploitation of the adhesion available in all operating conditions;

• redundancy of the traction systems for a elevated reliability of the transport service;

• possibility of coupling of the vehicles in double traction (rack vehicles) and in triple traction (vehicles in adhesion);

• 6 cylinders common-rail diesel motors, with elevated specific power are equipped of coaxial asynchronous three-phase generator which feeds a converter of traction to IGBT which controls the torque and the spin speed of the motors of traction.

The operating programme refers to the use of a train set with two elements (figure 5), formed by two single cabin units with symmetrical engines, each pushed by two motorized bogies (4 motor axes, 8 total axes with adhesion of 60 % ca.). The two units are coupled on the flat side, where the intercommunicating door is present in order to allow mobility of passengers on board between cars.

Figure 5 - trainset in composition with two railcars The vehicle is developed following the norm AB-EBV 742.141.11 enforced in Switzerland. This norm contains the experience matured on the base of the plans for rack railways, the majority of which is concentrated in Europe on the alpine arc. 6 CONCLUSIONS In this paper the approach to the restructuring of the company Ferrovie della Calabria is presented. A new management and a new transport approach, aims to improve the level of service, and to modernize the system, with an investment for the renewal of the rail fleet. The plan of reorganization of the railway services foresees also the construction of two new lines which will connect the cities of Catanzaro and Cosenza with the two main poles of passenger demand of the Region (the University of Cosenza and the Regional Council administration Citadel). The service strategy implies instead the adaptation of timetables to user needs, implementation of a new approach of punctuality, modernization of the company image and improvement of information and customer service.


The expected improvement is, with unchanged transport demand, a significant increase of the modal shift towards the rail system, with the improvement of supply, in terms of quantity and quality. The benefits perceived from the company, function to the greater number of pax*km, find a further positive reply in social benefits, with a reduction of the externalities coming from road transport, in terms of bus and private car passengers, indirect benefits as reduction in noise and air pollution, and road safety, all factors which vary directly with road traffic. The investment in rail transport, has the dual aim, to modernize the existing service, introducing safety and comfort standards, and to attract rail transport passengers which otherwise use bus or private car. This complies with the national and regional laws on Local Public transport, which promote the rationalization and integration of the transport services. BIBLIOGRAPHY

AA.VV. (2002), Linee guida per la programmazione dei servizi di Trasporto Pubblico Locale. Laruffa Editore, Reggio Calabria. Cascetta, E. (2001) Transportation System Engineering: Theory and Methods, Kluwer Academic Publishers. Cirianni F., Iannò D. (2004), “Good practices in public transport planning: competing modal choices and enforced transport policies” (European Transport Conference, - Proceedings – AET De Luca M. (2000), Manuale di pianificazione dei trasporti, CNR – Progetto Finalizzato Trasporti 2, Collana Trasporti, Franco Angeli editore, Milano. Decreto Legislativo n. 422 del 19/11/1997. Conferimento alle Regioni ed agli enti locali di funzioni e compiti in materia di trasporto pubblico locale, a norma dell’articolo 4, comma 4, della legge 15 marzo 1997, n. 59. Russo F. (2002), a cura di, Modelli e Metodi per la programmazione dei servizi di Trasporto Pubblico Locale: uno stato dell’arte. Collana Trasporti, Franco Angeli editore, Milano. Russo F. (2003), a cura di, Modelli e Metodi per la programmazione dei servizi di Trasporto Pubblico Locale: applicazioni a casi reali. Collana Trasporti, Franco Angeli editore, Milano. Regione Calabria (1999) “Norme per il trasporto pubblico locale”L. R. 07/08/1999, n. 23 Regione Calabria (2006) “Norme urgenti in materia di proroga del regime transitorio del trasporto pubblico locale”. L. R. 28/12/2006, n.18 Ministero delle Infrastrutture e dei Trasporti (2001), “Nuovo Piano Generale dei Trasporti e della Logistica” D.P.R. 14 marzo 2001, G.U. R.I. Pangallo L., Rindone C. (2004), “Strumenti di programmazione del Trasporto Pubblico Locale: stato di applicazione nelle Regioni del Sud” Metodi e tecnologie dell’Ingegneria dei Trasporti a cura di G.E. Cantarella e F. Russo, Collana Trasporti, Franco Angeli editore, Milano.

Improving public transport by rail: the case of public transport by trainin Calabria, Italy

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