PISA. Agenzia Regionale per la Protezione ambientale della Toscana (ARPAT)

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1 PISA City in Tuscany, Pisa is a city of nearly 90,000 inhabitants, that become around 200,000 considering also the residents in the surrounding municipalities. Pisa is known worldwide for its Leaning Tower and for being home to an important and ancient University, Scuola Normale and of other famous Schools of Advanced Studies. Like many ancient Italian cities, Pisa has a medieval structure, with a small historic centre enclosed by walls and characterized by narrow streets, where there are strict traffic restrictions (limited traffic areas and pedestrian precincts). ere e are The vehicular traffic runs along the outer rings, located outside the historic centre, and along the riversides, where rush hour traffic jams are not uncommon.

2 The inner red circle shows the historic centre, the wider circle shows the urban area with surrounding districts. The size of the traffic limited area is 1.5 by 1.5 sqkm with respect to the diameter of the whole urban area of 3 Km. The city does not have a great industrial tradition: the main productive activities consist in the production of glass, some pharmaceutical companies, cement factories. On the outskirts of the city there is a small industrial area where there is also the municipal solid waste incinerator. The presence of the University and of one of the most important hospitals in Italy, centre of excellence for the treatment of many diseases, as well as an airport that each year attracts over 4.5 million travellers, make it the destination of a quantity of daily commuters that doubles the number of people in the city compared to permanent residents. Here is a description of the city according to the traffic density, where the blue lines correspond to low traffic (less than 50 vehicles/h) and the red ones to the high traffic (from 170 up to more than 2000 v/h).

3 As we said before, the town has almost 90,000 residents and approximately 60,000 vehicles, but every day 90,000 vehicles enter the urban area for work. In spite of being a small town, the impact due to the presence of important infrastructures is evident from the data shown in this table. Vehicles entering 90,000/die Airport Passengers 4,500,000 / y Rail passengers 18,000,000 / y Bus Tours 42,000 / y Bike paths 33.7 km (24 Km in 2007) Pisa has the most important airport in Tuscany and the 2nd railway station for number of passengers. On the positive side, the availability of cycle paths has increased by over 40% in a few years. Italy is the second country in Europe in terms of number of cars per inhabitant: all cities exceed the value of 500 cars per 1000 inhabitants. Most of the demand for mobility is satisfied by private vehicles (81.5%), with negative consequences on road congestion, air quality, road accidens - and therefore on the health, safety and quality of life of citizens themselves. Tuscany, together with the Emilia Romagna region, has the largest automobile population, with more than 6 vehicles/10 inhabitants. It is in the first place for number of motorcycles (nearly 1 per 10 inhabitants).

4 Air Quality in Pisa This is the structure of the air quality monitoring network in Pisa until 2010, with 4 monitoring stations. Unfortunately, since 2011, in order to reduce operating costs, the monitoring sites of Fazio and Oratoio have been removed. All the limit values are respected for all the pollutants and the tendencies, compared with last year, are positive for all pollutants. The most critical situations remain that of NO2 (just a bit lower than the limit value) and of PM10 in the urban area, even if in the last two years no station has exceeded the limit of 50 µg/m3 more than 35 times. In facts, in terms of number of PM10 concentrations beyond 50 µg/m3 the situation has got better in the last 2 years

5 Number of PM10 concentrations greater than 50 µg/m PM10 - number of exceeding superi n. exceedind max number allowed exceeding The tendencies of the most common air pollutants: top left benzene which, like CO, has dropped significantly in the past ten years (more than 50%). On the contrary, for NO2 and PM10, after an initial reduction in the 90s, we have had steady values in the past 10 years.

6 The position of Pisa in the regional ranking PM10-PM2.5 : Pisa is average in the regional ranking, both as regards PM10 and PM.,5 which we have been monitoring for a few years. Better position in the last national ranking (number 56 out of the 62 most polluted cities in Italy). Sources of PM10 and relative contributions As far as PM10 is concerned, a lot of studies have shown that, in the urban areas of Mediterranean countries, traffic is the main factor responsible. In the pie-chart, the contributions from different sources to the PM10. These are evaluated on the basys of chemical analysis for the characterization of PM10 sampled in an urban area and taking into account all the industrial, residential, mobility sources.

7 Totally, TRAFFIC, defined as the sum of local and non-local emissions, contributes to PM10 concentrations in urban area by about 50%. The only local traffic, generated on site, contributes to PM10 by up to 25%. It is clear that mitigation policies, which act only locally, will not have significant effects. With this in mind, neighboring municipalities all have to implement all appropriate measures, as only the sum of all these measures will give satisfactory results, at least on a regional scale. STRATEGIES It is sure that the traffic is the main atmospheric (and acoustic) pollution source in urban areas. Despite this, knowledge of the problem has taken a long time to become action. Since a few years ago, the only measures taken were still emergency : the most common ones were the stoppage of the circulation for some categories of vehicles, or circulation with alternate number plates, both with poor and temporary results. These are the main actions adopted by the local municipality in the last few years, with some good results. Parking fees (higher in the centre, lower in the suburbs) = In the first six months of % less traffic compared with the same period in 2010 Strict parking regulations even in districts outside the city walls. Creation of park and ride = Have discouraged the use of private cars and increased the use of public transport Development of electric transport = Pisa, together with Roma and Milano, is the first city in Italy to install supply stations for electrical energy

8 Other work in progress: - Regulating loading/unloading in historic centre: only allow electrical vehicles - Extend the pedestrian precinct - Complete Park and Ride Plan on the south side People Mover, light railway: it is an automated system, no driver on board, to cover the length of 1.78 km in 4 minutes, connecting the airport, two park and rides, the bus station and the central station. Pisa, 30/11/2011 Dr. Gigliola Ciacchini Regional Environmental Protection Agency of Toscany g.ciacchini@arpat.toscana.it