Two pilot projects in the Italian plan for road safety to increase pedestrian safety

This paper deals with two case studies of the research "Widespread interventions in urban areas for the creation of best solutions for the pedestrian mobility". DITS is in charge of monitoring the development and of assessing the results of the implementation of two pedestrian paths systems in the case study cities. The following issues are considered: Current mobility patterns of Italians with respect to walking and motorised transport; state-of-the-Art pedestrian measures; legal and regulatory aspects and citizens' role; accident trends in Italy; the national plan for road safety; pilot pedestrian safety projects in Genoa and Bologna, and schools and road safety strategies for children. The Pilot Projects, even if just started, represent an important step toward the increase of awareness to safety problems, at national level. They are also important because they demonstrate how relevant is the synergy between public administrators and end-users, also the less representative ones, as children and teenagers are normally considered. However, it is important to underline that both projects are aimed at giving autonomy not only to children, but to all the involved areas dwellers, so to create really livable conditions for all. Indeed, habits of aged people will be positively affected from these interventions, too. Participation in both cases has been and will be a key element for the success of these two experiences and it represents the efforts by the administrations to ensure equity in the processes about mobility governance. Both projects will be soon fully operative, according to different priorities: for what concerns Genoa, implementations will start from those districts where safety situations have been considered worse. In Bologna, on the contrary, first positive outcomes from the Pilot Project area are pushing the local Municipality to implement such a test in other districts of the city. DITS follows the monitoring activities linked to the implementation phases and the elaboration of data coming from the ex-ante and ex-post phases of the projects.