Methodological and software tools for public local

Abstract: In line with EU regulations, the Italian Government has started the reform of public transport, transferring competencies from central Government to Regions for railway networks and from Regions to Local Administrations for bus services. The Local Administrations are therefore called to redesign the bus urban and inter-urban services. The targets are not only to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of public transportation, but also to improve all the quality issues related to mobility and to promote the environmental sustainability. This paper is focused on the methodological and software tools developed by Poliedra – Politecnico di Milano to support the Lombardy Region in defining a common framework where Local Administrations can operate and achieve their targets. The software tools are supported by a quantitative methodology. A set of meaningful indicators is defined, some of which are related to environmental and quality issues of public transport services, such as the vehicles kind and age, their emission levels in atmosphere, their suitability for disabled people, the total number of carried passengers, the accessibility to public facilities, the fitting of territorial mobility demand, the introduction of innovation services (e.g. services on demand) in low demand areas, which can be used to measure and to compare the different local situations. The whole software tools constitute the Regional Information System for Local Public Transport Services (MISTRAL). MISTRAL, that will be shared with Local Administrations, can help to monitor the transportation services contracts and to guarantee the respect of their quality standards, to evaluate the transport system through indicators and procedures and to provide support to decision processes in transport planning by methodologies based on multi-criteria analysis