177 million electric public transport project in Genoa

The integrated tender contract was signed for a value of 177 million between the Municipality of Genoa and the temporary grouping of companies formed by Icm, Leonardo and Colas Rail to launch the ‘Axes of Strength’ project for local public transport in the City of Genoa’.

The contract, the companies explain in a note, includes the executive design and the supply of works, plants and technological infrastructures and provides for the construction of a “zero polluting emission trolleybus system operating on four routes” from east to west and in the valleys, crossing the centre. The works, financed by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport and partly covered by funds from the PNRR, will begin this year.

“With the assignment of the works – said the councilor for integrated mobility and transport of the Municipality Matteo Campora – the operational phase of the new electric transport system starts, based on the purchase of 145 vehicles and the requalification of the remittances”. A fleet of 145 trolleybuses and electric buses and over 300 bus shelters and ‘intelligent stops’ will serve the 96 kilometers of the 4 axes (Asse Centro, Asse Levante, Asse Ponente, Asse Val Bisagno). The project will be able to count on the “best hi-tech solutions developed by Leonardo, based on secure-by-design architectures and systems capable of countering even the cyber threat: monitoring of reserved lanes, also through advanced video analysis algorithms and artificial intelligence for data processing, and traffic light preference, to ensure high travel speeds and compliance with timetables and frequencies”.

The novelty, explain the promoters of the project, “is the flash charging technology, which will be applied to electric buses on the Val Bisagno line and will make it possible to recharge the vehicles by exploiting the boarding and alighting time of passengers at stops and at the terminus, with no impact on the time and speed of transport”.