The European Commission loves the idea of fast moving walkways

Clean, quiet, efficient, relatively fast, space saving, high capacity ... these are the qualities we want from urban public transport. Riccardo Scarinci, post-doc at the Transport and Mobility Laboratory, explored an idea that meets all of these criteria: accelerating moving walkways. Conceivable in the heart of a city freed from private cars, the concept seduced the jury of the European Transport Innovation Challenge. Riccardo Scarinci is one of the 12 winners of the European Commission's 2017 challenge, which rewards innovative ideas for a cleaner and more efficient future in transport from young researchers (18-35 years) in Europe.

The researcher's idea is to offer accelerating walkways, which can reach a speed up to 15 km/h and become competitive with current urban transport modes during peak hours. As an example, the commercial speed of public transport in Geneva oscillates between 14 and 18 km/h, on urban lines. That of cars, at peak hours, stagnates around 15km/h.

Riccardo Scarinci focused on the feasibility of a network of moving walkways. He attempted to come up with the optimal design, taking into account the road network, demand, the speed required to make the system competitive, energy consumption and operational and budgetary constraints.

Moving walkways offer two advantages. First, they are narrower than roads: they measure 1.20 meters across versus 2.5 to 3.5 meters for a roadway. That means that one road is wide enough to hold moving walkways in both directions while still leaving room for other means of transport. In terms of volume, a moving walkway can handle 7,000 passengers per hour, while a roadway can accommodate between 750 and 1,800 vehicles.

The 12 European Transport Innovation Challenge 2017 winners get a free trip to Strasbourg on 19, 20 and 21 June 2017 to follow the ITS Congress, Europe’s biggest gathering of professionals working in intelligent transport systems.