The transport sector is often the center of political and scientific debate on sustainability due to negative externalities produced by the daily movement of goods and people which impact both on the environment and on quality of life. Great interest has therefore focused on impact estimation of transport infrastructures/services with respect to social, economic, and environmental sustainability. Among the consolidated assessment methods, the cost–benefit analysis (CBA) is one of the quantitative tools representing the final stage (decision) in decision-making processes, which compares design alternatives and verifies the sustainability of a transport project. Recently the Italian Government proposed the national “Guidelines for Assessment of Investment Projects” based on CBA. The aim of this research is twofold: a) from a research point of view, to propose a sustainable evaluating method for impact assessment of the new transportation infrastructure aimed in performing both rational and shared decisions with the territories; b) for a practical point of view, to propose a first application of the CBA Italian guideline useful for the professional practice in the field of public investment evaluation. A quantitative impacts assessment of social, economic and environmental sustainability was performed for a revamping project of a new “greenway” in the south of Italy. Furthermore, also the social equity impacts produced by the new road infrastructure was also quantified, estimating the GINI indexes variation as a measure of effectiveness.

Sustainability can be defined as the capacity to satisfy current needs without compromising future generations. Sustainable development clashes with the transport sector because of the latter’s high fossil fuels usage, consumption of natural resources and emission of pollutant and greenhouse gases. Electric mobility seems to be one of the best options to achieve both the sustainability goals and the mobility needs. This paper critically analysed weaknesses, strengths and application fields of electric mobility, proposing a real case application of an e-mobility bus fleet in Sorrento peninsula (Italy). The aim and the originality of this research was to propose a public transport design methodology based on a “strong sustainability” policy and applied to a real case study. To be precise, the renewing of the “old” bus fleet with a diesel plug-in hybrid one charged by a photovoltaic system was proposed, aiming to both improve environmental sustainability and perform an investment return for a private operator in managing the transport service. The proposed case study is particularly suitable because the peculiar morphology of the Sorrento peninsula in Italy does not allow other types of public transport services (e.g., rail, metro). Furthermore, this area, rich in UNESCO sites, has always been an international tourist destination because of the environment and landscape. Estimation results show that the new e-mobility bus service will be able to reduce the greenhouse gases emissions up to the 23%, with a financial payback period of 10 years for a private investor.

The low accessibility of transportation to the main Italian touristic places (during the summer period) produces road congestion that is often high and negative environmental impacts (externalities). This is the case of the coastal area between Cesena and Venice, which is particularly affected by this phenomenon because of a unique local road, the Romea: it allows car trips among all these touristic places. Beginning from these considerations, the realization of a new highway was proposed, to improve transport accessibility to this area. A Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA) was identified as the rational evaluation process to verify the sustainability (economic, social and environmental) of this transportation project. The aim of this paper is to describe the MCA evaluation analyses applied to this case study, underlining the main results obtained. One of the main findings of the research was the applied evaluation methodology. A rational and participated weights definition criterion process was implemented, through a "Delphi method" within a Public Engagement process. The MCA results show that the best design alternative is the construction of a highway plus the realization of a "green-way". Furthermore, we found that the estimated non-user's benefit incidence was about 80% of the total, underlining the appropriateness in using this evaluation method, useful to better quantify non-monetary externalities (versus the cost-benefit analysis). Finally, to verify the robustness of the results we also performed a sensitivity analysis, confirming the main results.

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