Maria Nadia Postorino

In recent years, the European Commission increased its efforts to promote co-modality, mainly between air and rail transport systems that should become more complementary according to the EU indications. Besides the need for efficient co-modal infrastructures, also modal split for airport access/egress should be improved. Some relevant factors pushing towards such policies are the increase of pollution due to transport-related activities, high congestion levels both at airports and along the main European air routes, the need to reduce accident risks linked to high congested systems. The opening of high-speed lines, such as Paris-Lyon, Brussels-Paris, Madrid-Seville, but also between UK and continental Europe (by means of the Channel Tunnel), has enabled rail transport to obtain significant market shares on routes where time sensitive passengers would previously have travelled by air. As air transport and fast train generally concern medium-long range trips, their role should be examined within the European ambitious project known as TEN-T, i.e., the European Transport Network allowing people and freight to move, easily and safely, across Europe. In this scenario, the goal of this project is to test a comprehensive methodological approach concerning the airport carbon emission contributions within a competition/integration air and fast rail user choices framework in order to identify the potential, future trends the EU will face in the next decades. Specifically, the airport carbon emission contributions are estimated by taking into account airside operations as well as access/egress surface modes, both depending on user choices between several modes. The main expected result of this study is the implementation and testing of a methodology able to take into account how user travel choices and planning strategies can improve the airport development also satisfying the concept of transport sustainability, in the light of the current tendency towards co-modality. Furthermore, the estimate of the airport carbon footprint is particularly useful at local level, where the effect of environmental pollution can be more evident; particularly, the airport developing strategies can be verified a priori in terms of carbon footprint produced by each component so as to promote a sustainable development, where co-modality could be a key factor to achieve such an outcome.