Maria Nadia
Postorino

DISCIPLINE

Ingénierie des transports

PROJET

AIR TRANSPORT AND HIGH-SPEED TRAIN USER CHOICES. EXPECTED IMPACTS WITHIN THE EUROPEAN TRANSPORT SCENARIO

In recent years, the European Commission increased its efforts to promote co-modality, mainly between air and rail transport systems that should become more complementary according to the EU indications. Besides the need for efficient co-modal infrastructures, also modal split for airport access/egress should be improved. Some relevant factors pushing towards such policies are the increase of pollution due to transport-related activities, high congestion levels both at airports and along the main European air routes, the need to reduce accident risks linked to high congested systems. The opening of high-speed lines, such as Paris-Lyon, Brussels-Paris, Madrid-Seville, but also between UK and continental Europe (by means of the Channel Tunnel), has enabled rail transport to obtain significant market shares on routes where time sensitive passengers would previously have travelled by air. As air transport and fast train generally concern medium-long range trips, their role should be examined within the European ambitious project known as TEN-T, i.e., the European Transport Network allowing people and freight to move, easily and safely, across Europe.

In this scenario, the goal of this project is to test a comprehensive methodological approach concerning the airport carbon emission contributions within a competition/integration air and fast rail user choices framework in order to identify the potential, future trends the EU will face in the next decades. Specifically, the airport carbon emission contributions are estimated by taking into account airside operations as well as access/egress surface modes, both depending on user choices between several modes. The main expected result of this study is the implementation and testing of a methodology able to take into account how user travel choices and planning strategies can improve the airport development also satisfying the concept of transport sustainability, in the light of the current tendency towards co-modality. Furthermore, the estimate of the airport carbon footprint is particularly useful at local level, where the effect of environmental pollution can be more evident; particularly, the airport developing strategies can be verified a priori in terms of carbon footprint produced by each component so as to promote a sustainable development, where co-modality could be a key factor to achieve such an outcome.

BIOGRAPHIE

Maria Nadia Postorino got a Civil Engineering degree (five-year level) summa cum laude at the University of Reggio Calabria and then a PhD in Transport Engineering at the University of Rome “La Sapienza”.

Currently she is Professor in Transport Engineering at the Department of Civil Engineering, Energy, Environment and Materials, University of Reggio Calabria.

Since 1991 she has taken part in many research projects financed by national and local public bodies and companies and she has been involved in various committees for organising many scientific meetings, both as participant and scientific coordinator (e.g., annual Conference on European Transports, AET; Women Issue in Transportation; WG meeting of the COST action TA1201).

In 2004/2006 she organised, directed and coordinated the research activities about “Methods and models to forecast the air passenger transport demand” within the National Relevant Interest Project financed by the Higher Education and Italian Research Ministry: “Guidelines for planning the development of Italian regional airports”.

She is reviewer for several international journals, Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Traffic and Transportation Engineering, component of the Scientific Committee of the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées (Paris, France).

The research focuses mainly on: Air transport system models; Transport demand estimation and SP techniques; Performances and impacts on the transport system; Public transport system analysis and simulation; sustainable mobility.

PUBLICATIONS PRINCIPALES

• Gegov E., Postorino M. N., Atherton M., Gobet F., Community Structure detection in the evolution of the United States airport network, "Advances in complex system", n.16, 2013, ISSN: 0219-5259.
• Postorino M. N., Versaci M., A Fuzzy Approach to Reduce Delays at Signalized Road Intersections, "International journal for traffic and transport engineering", n. 1, 2012, pp. 52-59, ISSN: 2325-0062.
• Postorino M. N., Praticò F. G., An application of the Multi-Criteria Decision Making analysis to a regional multi-airport system, "Research in transportation business & management", n. 4, 2012, pp. 44-52, ISSN: 2210-5395.
• Gegov E., Gegov A., Postorino M. N., Atherton M. And Gobet F., Space-independent community structure detection in United States air transportation, Proceedings of IFAC 2012: International Symposium on Control in Transportation Systems, Sofia (Bulgaria), 2012, pp. 1-6.
• Postorino M. N., City Competitiveness and Airport: Information Science Perspective, City Competitiveness and Improving Urban Subsystems: Technologies and Applications, IGI Global, Hershey Pa (USA), 2011, pp. 61-83, ISBN: 978-1-61350-174-0.
• Postorino M. N., Environmental effects of airport nodes: a methodological approach, "International journal of sustainable development and planning", n. 5 (2), 2010, pp. 192-204, ISSN: 1743-7601.
• Postorino M. N., Air Demand Modelling: overview and application to a developing regional airport, in: Postorino M. N. Editor, Development of regional airports, WIT Press (GBR), 2010.
• Postorino M. N., Development of Regional Airports in EU, in: Postorino M. N. Editor, Development of regional airports, WIT Press (GBR), 2010.
• Postorino M. N., Passenger air demand at regional airports: key factors for a suitable development, in: A Cura Di Lupi M., Methods and models for planning the development of regional airport systems, Franco Angeli (ITA), 2008, pp. 47-58, ISBN: 978-88-568-0327-3.
• Postorino M. N., Versaci M, A Neuro-Fuzzy Approach to Simulate the User Mode Choice Behaviour in a Travel Decision Framework. International journal of modelling & simulation, n. 28, N.1, 2008, ISSN: 0228-6203.
• Postorino M. N., Forecasting demand level at developing regional airports, Air Transport Research Society 2007 Conference, 21-23 June 2007, Proceedings of the Air Transport Research Society 2007, Berkeley, California, Usa, 2007.
• Postorino M. N., Barrile V, Cotroneo F, Surface Movement Ground Control by means of a GPS-GIS system, "Journal of air transport management", n. 12, 2006, pp. 375-381, ISSN: 0969-6997.
• Postorino M. N., Fedele V, The analytic hierarchy process to evaluate the quality of service in transit systems, Urban Transport and the environment in the 21st century, XII, WIT Press (GBR), 2006, ISBN: I-84564-179-5.
• Andreoni A, Postorino M. N., Time series models to forecast air transport demand: a study about a regional airport, 11th Ifac Symposium On Control In Transportation Systems, Proceedings of 11th IFAC Symposium on Control in Transportation Systems, Ministry of Transport, Delft (NLD), 2006.
• Andreoni A, Postorino M. N., A multivariate ARIMA model to forecast air transport demand, European Transport Conference, Proceedings of the European Transport Conference, Strasburgo (GBR), 2006.