Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP) of Verona

Overview

With its 258,000 inhabitants, the city of Verona is a strategic hub for the most important national infrastructures (A4, A22, the Milan-Venice HS / HC railway line, the Brenner line and the Bologna-Verona line), as well as the headquarters of Interporto Quadrante Europa, one the most important European freight terminal. The fifth city for tourism nationwide, its historic center has been a UNESCO heritage site since 2000. The difficulties of local public transport and the overwhelming prevalence of cars are easily understood by looking at the division of modes of transport in Verona: for city travel, the private car is much preferred (60%). In following with the sustainability policies of European cities, Verona also wants to steer its mobility towards the promotion of truly eco-sustainable travel. The preparation of the multimodal urban mobility model has made it possible to evaluate and compare the most effective actions, developing two project scenarios for 2025 and 2030. The analyses conducted and participation have clearly shown the importance of setting up a new metropolitan railway service organized around existing stops and new stops at major poles of attraction and the need for fast connections between Catullo Airport, the Fair and the Verona Porta Nuova station. The SUMP has proposed intermodal hubs defined on the basis of the new local public transport network reorganized according to the planned route of the new trolleybus network, in order to intercept part of the systematics entering Verona at the city’s outskirts, decongesting the central area and favoring the diversion among auto-bus-bicycle modes of transport. It has also identified some squares to be pedestrianized and proposes a Controlled Access Area with Road Pricing interventions in the Città Antica quarter. Particular attention is given to bicycling: the Biciplan (Bike Plan) defines 24 new bike routes and 10 new 30 Km/h Zones. The SUMP was adopted by the Municipal Council on October 22, 2020.