Thinking Big. Rehabilitating a Formerly Minor Railway Supply in a Medium-density Urban Area in Central Italy

The paper describes the feasibility study for the rehabilitation of a railway corridor at Lanciano, in central Italy. Although the area is not densely populated, the need to divert commuters’ flows from passenger cars to transit is sufficient to prompt the analysis, and the choice to focus on rail rather than rubber-tired modes is dictated by the willingness to operate more environmentally-friendly services. Area features and demand patterns, all described in the paper, steer the selection to light railway, and more specifically to tram-train services. Goals, requirements and the study outcomes are duly reported. The research question behind, and the goal of the paper, is to identify drivers and barriers to resume a commercial service on an abandoned alignment, with the goal to provide evidence for feasibility studies for similar cases.