The city has benchmarked with the Velo.Info method and was awarded a Bronze status for cycling policy.

Rome's urban configuration

The Rome Municipality (1280 km2) and other 120 small satellite municipalities (4000 km2). It is located on the west coast of the centre of Italy in the Lazio Region, which is the third most populous region and the third industrial pole in the country, claiming over 5 million people (2,55 million Rome municipality).

The Rome Municipality is further subdivided into 19 districts (Municipi), but from a functional point of view five areas can be identified , four internal to the Great Ring Road (GRA, Grande Raccordo Anulare) according to the Urban Traffic General Plan (PGTU, Piano Generale del Traffico Urbano), while the fifth is external to the GRA and extends to the city border; all of them have been identified on the base of their general characteristics and the planned modal shift between public and private transport.

The historical centre (A), corresponding to the Restricted Access Zone (LTZ), is an area of about 6 km2 and shows the highest concentration of business activities (21 thousand workers/km2): less than 1% of the municipal territory hosts 13% of the total workers, while population amounts to only 2% over the total.

The central area (B) borders internally the historical centre and externally the railway ring. The area is densely populated and presents a great deal of business activities.

The semi central area (C) borders internally the central area and externally is approximately identified by the inner ring road (still not completed). The area is characterized by a medium business density and the highest population density (about 11 thousand inhabitants/km2).

The peripheral area (D) covers the rest of the urban settlement within the GRA. Business and residential density are lower than in the previous cases.

Finally the suburban area (E), located externally to the GRA, presents the lowest business and residential densities. It must be underlined that the values of 300 inhabitants and 100 workers per km2 are average results deriving from the theoretical distribution over a large area of quantities concentrated in numerous small built areas.

Mobility system and policies

Transport supply and demand

The road network is composed by infrastructures of metropolitan scale (motorways, highways, main roads) with a total length of about 1200 km and over 7000 km of local roads. The structure of the main network is based on the radial system created 2000 years ago. The radii are connected through rings, some of them complete and some others under completion; among them the GRA, which includes completely the urban area and is being widened to three lanes per direction for the whole length, and the internal ring road, which includes the central and semi central areas and is planned to be completed in the next years.

The road network supports the road public transport system, based on bus, rail and tram services. Road network public transport is operated through more than 250 lines (more than 2700 vehicles, 2600 km of network length, 115 million vehicles × km per year), 6 tram lines (more than 140 vehicles, 50 km network length, 5 million vehicles × km per year), which use over 100 km of reserved and protected lanes in the most important sections. The peripheral routes have the role of feeders to the main network elements; most of the urban routes however work as distributors in their peripheral sections and collectors in the main radial sections.

Also the regional railway and metro systems are based on the structure of the road network, in this way determining the most important corridors in the town as multi-modal facilities.

The railway network is served by two different operators, the national operator FS (200 km network length in the Rome territory used also by interregional, national and international trains) and the regional operator METRO Spa (140 km network length in the Rome territory used only on metropolitan services).

The metro system counts two lines, which are the main diameters of the town: route A from south-east to west, route B from south to north-east. The network, with a length slightly higher than 36.5 km, serves 48 stations with 80 trains, with a production of about 6 million train × km per year. Surveys, and simulations, showed the following: the two metro lines (A and B) are the main elements of the network; they are used at capacity during the peak hour (20 thousand passengers per direction) and serve over 220 million passengers per year; other important routes run on the radial corridors and are operated both by light rail systems and buses (during the last five years numerous articulated buses have been put in service); also in this cases the peak periods are characterised by lack of capacity; the bus and tram routes serve over 815 million passengers per year; The three suburban railways managed by the operator METRO Spa serve every year 32 million passengers; Important agreements have been signed by the local authorities and the national railway operator (FS) to operate urban and regional railway services, whose market penetration has been almost immediate despite the low frequencies still operated; no data on passenger traffic are at present available.

The number of motor vehicles registered in the City of Rome is approximately 2.2 million. In Rome, approximately 7,1 million trips (About 6,1 millions by residents) are made daily. Referred to the province land, 60% of trips are made by the individual vehicle (over 500,000 trips are made on two-wheeled vehicles).

As capital of the country, administrative, political and services are the main activities, including transport and all assets related to tourism: these activities are particularly concentrated in the central area, especially in its historical centre.

In spite of this concentration of activities, a sufficiently developed radial system of public transport services has not been implemented. Both pedestrian and public transport shares are only 40% each of the total mobility.

Mobility goals

At the present time one of the most important problems, derived from this uncontrolled development, is the noticeable imbalance between transport demand and supply, which determined a dramatic modal split in favour of private vehicles. In the last 35 years motorisation rate grew from 0.2 to 0.7 vehicles per capita, with a threefold leap in terms of km travelled by private vehicles due to the increase in the average trip length and the number of vehicles travelling (+650%).

Such an increase in private transport has not been forced back by enforcing enough public transport services which, in the same period, showed a lower increase in km travelled (+90%). Public transport in 1964 served 56% of the total motorised trips, now this percentage has lowered to 25%; at the same time the walking mode has considerably declined. The main impact of such changes is a considerable deterioration of human and natural environment.

The strong transformations of the urban structure, in variance of the zoning designed by the '62 Master plan, have modified in very deep way the Rome settlement and now, on the basis of this structure, it has been developed the already described scheme dividing the territorial settlement into four concentric rings, considering the urban fabric as well as the density of services and facilities, and supposing a different modal split between public and private transport in these areas.

This land use configuration has determined a transport demand asset basically structured on radial desire lines with negligible tangential relationships; such characteristics, jointly to the strong radial network structure and the insufficient public transport supply, implied high levels of congestion on the radial infrastructures and, at the same time, on the reduced number of tangential roads.

The main objective at the base of the City Council policies consists of the achievement of a sustainable development. Such main objective is detailed in two general goals: improve mobility conditions, while increasing circulation safety and decreasing air and noise pollution, retrain urban spaces, by rationalising public space use, safeguarding citizen's health and preserving historical and architectural heritage.

With intention to pursue the above objectives, the City Administration has developed a strategy aimed at obtaining a rebalancing of modal split through the adoption of specific measures to decrease private car use and convert a significant part of this mobility to public transport, at the same time by enforcing transit supply and promoting alternative means of transport.

This strategy is developed as an extremely flexible instrument, susceptive to be adapted to typological and dimensional characteristics of the urban fabric; the transport policy is aimed at discouraging private vehicle usage in the central areas, with higher density of activities, and allowing its usage increasingly with distance from the historic centre.

The integrated transport solutions identified by the Administration, aimed at speeding up the urban transformation processes, find their explanation in two transport management instruments: the long term instrument perceives objectives through the planning and design of transport infrastructures, the short term instrument is oriented towards the definition of private traffic regulation and control.

The New General Master plan (PRG) has been approved in March 2006. It is a participated urban plan in the realization of which have actively participated professional associations, private citizens, institutions, and as far as cycling is concerned the Plans foresees that in the newly urbanized areas cycle lanes are included. The PRG confirms and includes all the cycle network as already foreseen in the PGTU (General Plan for Urban Traffic) approved in 1999 and updated in 2005.

According to local planning strategies, and following national legislation asking all the medium and large towns for the preparation of the Urban Traffic Plan (PUT, Piano Urbano del Traffico), in 1997 the City Council adopted the Urban Traffic General Plan (PGTU, Piano Generale del Traffico Urbano) as the first step towards PUT; after a participation process with citizens and public technical offices, the PGTU was approved in 1999. In 2005 The PGTU was updated.

Towards this objective, the Administration has started up from the first '90 a financing policy for the development of the rail network, urban railways as well as metro and tram lines, supported by a very high budget. This ambitious program is articulated as follows: extend and strengthen the two existing metro lines and construct two new lines; redesign and integrate the existing railway and tram network; complete the internal ring (Green Ring) boarding the C zone, which will be transformed, on the basis of sustainability principles, in a road traffic collector towards intermodal nodes with radial railway lines; traffic calming measures are programmed on all routes; complete the intermodal nodes in peripheral areas aimed at guaranteeing modal change between private and public transport.

In concomitance with the development of infrastructures designed by PROIMO, the redesign of road public transport is in progress: new high speed radial lines served by tram, trolleys and electric vehicles will be added to the existing ones, which will be strengthened and extended in the A and B PGTU areas. This will give to the radial road system the function of public transport main axes, in order to satisfy, jointly with rail lines, a greater part of transport demand to and from historic centre. Priority will be guaranteed to radial public transport through: new reserved lanes; traffic calming measures, and other specific measures, to discourage car usage to access central areas; traffic lights regulation with priority to public transport at crossroads with reserved lanes; correct articulation of parking fares (about 45.000 paid parking places at constant hourly price are now available) increasing while approaching the central areas, aimed at encouraging citizens to use peripheral intermodal nodes; access control system to historic centre to be implemented together with pricing policies, applied with equity to residents and non-residents, aimed at discouraging private vehicle usage.

Cycling State of the art

In the last years, for the mobility policies, the "Cycling System" is getting more and more important and represents a real alternative opportunity to the private.

However, when it comes to non motorised modes, the picture is rather dismal. In particular, only 0.3% of urban trips are made by bicycle: this is 1/3 to 1/30 of other major European cities, such as Paris, London and Berlin, which are large, high density urban areas that do not necessarily have a cycling tradition, but have recently decided to turn the bicycle into "the" alternative mode of transport, as it is more environmentally sustainable.

And yet, as recent surveys carried out with workers in city firms have shown, precisely in the city of Rome there is a significant demand for a more cycling city which is not met, and which could potentially offer a considerable contribution toward reducing motor traffic.

Indeed, the low rate of cycle use in Rome does not seem attributable to climatic conditions (much more pleasant than in Northern Italy or in Northern Europe) or to the fact that the city is hilly (this difficulty is easily overcome with the electrically assisted bicycles that are rapidly spreading), but rather to insufficient infrastructure and to the lack of a systematic logic in the measures taken to promote the use of bicycles in the past.

At the moment, Rome offers 90 km of bicycle / pedestrian lanes and 15 more are presently under construction. The km in the green areas and parks are 63 km. More than 33 km of bicycle lanes are already designed, and 30 km more are programmed.

As for the LPT - Bicycle switches, the interchange nodes (interchange and proximity parking, underground and underground railway stations and bus and tram interchange nodes) are being equipped with secured parking systems near the stations, the guard booths or in areas that are visible and not secluded, so as to further avoid theft.

The bicycle parking switches (or racks) already implemented are 30 for 400 bikes. Despite an ever growing awareness of the environmental problems facing Rome, citizens have yet to perceive cycling as a legitimate and healthy means of transport. Growing patterns will hence take a long to be recorded, even at the presence of structural interventions.