Politecnico approves its first Sustainable Mobility Action Plan
Politecnico di Milano approved its Sustainable Mobility Action Plan (SMAP or PSCL in Italian) in July 2021. This document fulfills a legislative obligation introduced in Italy by Decree of the Environment Ministry on 27 March 1998. The Legislative Decree No.34 of 19 May 2020, converted into the Law No.77 of 17 July 2020, and the Decree of 12 May 2021 have increased the number of companies and public administrations compelled to carry out mobility management activities and have changed the main contents required in a PSCL.
Politecnico Sustainable Mobility Action Plan has been drafted by the University Mobility Manager and by the mobility management team of the Sustainability Unit (Campus Life Area), but has developed through a participatory process that involved many colleagues and professors, in order to collect necessary data together with suggestions from experts in the field.
The document is based on the analysis of the normative, territorial and infrastructural context, both inside and outside the campuses, in order to have a complete picture of the available mobility offer. This information was then paired up with knowledge on the mobility demand of the Politecnico population, gathered through a mobility survey carried out in 2019 to study the different habits and needs when travelling to the university.
Starting from this data and what the Politecnico already does to promote sustainable mobility, the PSCL identifies the main areas of intervention (reducing inflows; infrastructural projects; services and agreements; incentives and benefits) and the concrete actions proposed to reach this goal.
The proposed actions contribute to working towards the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and aim at stimulating a change in mobility habits towards more sustainable ways of travelling, discouraging the use of private vehicles, in accordance with the Politecnico CO2 emissions Mitigation Plan.
Moreover, the PSCL also contains a section with proposals for the Municipality, a collection of the suggestions already transmitted to the competent authorities in the summer 2020.
The results of the mobility survey suggest the adoption of different actions according to the travel distance.
Above 7 km:
- external measures: find an agreement with public transport operators and the Municipality to introduce “consumption subscriptions”, facilitate cyclists use of trains building more accessible infrastructures, promote the adoption of supra-municipal plans allowing for better ciclying connections towards train stations;
- internal measures: widen the range of categories that can benefit from the Politecnico contribution for public transport subscriptions and increase the value of the contribution, promote car pooling and install charging stations for electric vehicles.
Below 7 km:
- external measures: find an agreement with public transport operators and the Municipality to introduce “consumption subscriptions”, collaborate with the Municipality to realize cycle lanes and traffic calming solutions near the campuses;
- internal measures: install more bike racks and build bicycle stations, alongside showers and locker rooms, give mobility credits to people travelling to university by bike.
Regarding the actions under Politecnico authority, on September 2020 an internal survey was carried out to evaluate the users’ interest for the 5 priority actions, asking to express its evaluation with scores from 1 (not significant) to 10 (very important). The survey results, shown in the picture below, prove how people believe measures related to cycling to be much more urgent: first of all, more infrastructures, increasing the availability of bike parking spots and the realization of bicycle stations, followed by incentives assigned to bike to workers and the introduction of services such as showers and locker rooms.
Here the details on each of the priority measures, for which the expected investment needed is of 1.5 million euros in total:
1. Cycling infrastrucures (proposed investiment: 550,000 euros)
Proposed actions: building of 5 bicycle stations accessible only to Politecnico users through a badge check and equipped with bike repair stations, one for each of these campuses (in addition to the one already being built in Leonardo campus): Bonardi, Bassini, Golgi, La Masa, Candiani. Increase the bike racks available in order to reach a total supply of at least 1,300 bike parking spots in Leonardo campus, 600 in Bovisa campuses and around a hundred for each of the regional campuses.
2. Incentives for bike to workers (proposed investiment: 400,000 euros)
Proposed actions: introduction of benefits or prizes (e.g. discounts on items available in the Polimi Official Merchandise Green Collection) for Politecnico employees that will travel to the University by bike and will take part in a voluntary program to track and certify their daily routes.
3. Soft mobility infrastrutture and services (proposed investiment: 250,000 euros)
Proposed action: construction of shower and locker rooms, ideally near the bicycle station referred in point 1 and inside each department.
4. Electric mobility infrastructures (proposed investiment: 200,000 euros)
Proposed action: installation of 20 more charging stations of electric cars to be equally distributed among the campuses (in addition to the 20 charging stations already financed thanks to the Energy Commission) and 300 more power sockets to recharge bike and kick scooters batteries to be installed in study halls, resting and recreational areas (in addition to those already installed in the Leonardo Gardens and inside the new bicycle station).
5. Incentives for car poolers (proposed investiment: 100,000 euros)
Proposed actions: introduction of benefits or prizes (e.g. discounts on items available in the Polimi Official Merchandise Green Collection) for the users of the university car pooling platform, being tested.
The full document is available below (in italian), together with an infographic summarizing its main contents: