Accessibility to Italian remote regions: Comparison among different transport alternatives

Abstract Historically, for geographically disadvantaged areas or those with a low level of infrastructure, air transport services are often considered to be lifeline services. In the last decades, investments in the airport sector have been promoted as a way to increase accessibility to many Italian regions. On the other side, transport services have also witnessed important changes as the entrance of low cost carriers, the development of high speed railway services or the liberalization of the long distance coach transport sector. These services, together with an improved intermodality, could provide an alternative to access areas of the country. The paper, adopting a policymaker perspective, studies the different transport alternatives available to connect the zones in the catchment area of an airport without scheduled services, computing the minimum generalized cost (GC). Two scenarios are also analyzed in terms of possible strategies to improve accessibility levels reducing the GC. The first one assumes two daily public service obligations from the local airports to two main airports while the second scenario studies the effect of an improvement of the bus connections to the closest airport with scheduled services from the zones in the catchment area of the local airport. Simulations are based on a multimodal national transport model describing the entire Italian long distance supply for the period 2013/2014. It allows the calculation of the GC by road, rail, coach and air services. The GC provides a clear and comparable measure to understand the role of different transport modes in providing domestic connections. Results show how the more an area is remote the more a PSO could be effective while whereas ground alternatives are present the effect of air PSO is reduced. Moreover, improving ground accessibility to the main airports has a wider impact in terms of decrease of the minimum GC and in the number of zones experiencing a reduction. This paper aims to contribute to the literature on the accessibility from areas with a low level of infrastructure. It also represents a support for policy makers when promoting, drafting or reconsidering their own regional air transport programs and as well for airport manager when considering alternatives to improve airport ground accessibility.