Today, the birthplace of Christopher Columbus is the busiest port of Italy and in the Mediterranean Sea. Located on the Gulf of Genoa in the Ligurian Sea, it ranks as the twelfth-busiest port in the European Union. The city has hosted massive shipyards and steelworks since the 19th century, and is still one of the Italy’s major economic centres forming the southern corner of the Milan-Turin-Genoa industrial triangle .
Genoa most southern point of the Rhine-Alpine corridor, between the mountains and the Ligurian Sea makes the node long stretched, causing developments of the city and region to be mostly stretched along the shore on the limited amount of space available, while continuing its connection on corridor level.
Key challenges of the urban node Genova that were discussed during the workshop there are amongst others:
- The pressure on available space – challenge of space;
- The necessity and possibilities of modal shift from road to rail.
While discussing the challenges, some specific projects in relation to these key challenges were mentioned and explained;
- Terzo Valico as a new railway connection from Genova to the North as an important construction of the port in order to be able to make more intensive use of the railway connection with the hinterland;
- The ports of Genova and Savona are working together. This goes for the regions Liguria, Lombardia en Piemonte as well. With these collaborations it becomes easier to make integrated decisions on the bigger geographical levels;
- Shuttle service to for example Rivalta are speeding up the processes in the port area. Transportation via such a fast corridor aims to allow more goods to be handled in the ports of Genova;
- Via a ‘bonus’ as additional advantage for using different modes of transport while transporting goods from the port to the hinterland, the modal shift is stimulated.
Takeaways from the workshops are:
- The completion of European corridors is more than finalizing the line drawn on the map, but includes considering measures and investments throughout the entire corridor. On corridor level as well as regional and local level;
- In order to create an efficient logistic system a strategy on different scale levels is required, setting clear aims for the city/urban node, the region(s) and the (inter)national corridor(s).