Construction work begins on Bologna’s People Mover

On 31 October 2015, Marconi Express officially started the construction work for the People Mover in Bologna, the innovative transportation system that will link Marconi Airport to Bologna Centrale Railway Station. Works will be completed in 36 months and the first ride with passengers on board is expected to take place in 2019.

The project

Bologna People Mover is a monorail shuttle that will link the Airport to Bologna Centrale Railway Station in about 7 minutes, with just one intermediate stop at Lazzaretto station.

The system will initially be running with two vehicles, each with a capacity of 50 passengers. Service will be operated for 18 hours a day (from 6am to 12pm), 365 days a year, with maximum frequency of 7.5 minutes in the peak hours and transport capacity of 420 passengers per hour per direction.

In order to ensure long term availability, a third vehicle will be used in case of increased demand or during maintenance activities of one of the two vehicles. In order to ensure the simultaneous operation of the three trains, the third vehicle will be coupled to one of the remaining two vehicles. Thanks to this solution, trains will leave from each station every 8 minutes increasing the capacity to 560 passengers per hour per direction.

It has been estimated that the infrastructure will carry about 1 million passengers in the first year of operation.

Our role

Steer Davies Gleave has been involved throughout the project working with both the Concessionaire and the Lenders, carrying out the following services:

• Analysis and evaluation of market: during the bidding process Steer Davies Gleave has provided the selected concessionaire with traffic and revenue forecasts. We conducted field surveys at the airport, using both origin destination and stated preference techniques and developed a logit model to define the capture rate of the new service. 
• Study of brand and Wayfinding system: Steer Davies Gleave has delivered the brand and the visual identity for Marconi Express and the coordinated family of signing structures for the three stations.
• Technical Due Diligence: Steer Davies Gleave was commissioned by the Lenders to undertake a technical due diligence of the detailed design, the capex plan, the relevant contractual agreements and the O&M costs, including the assessment of the main risks of the project.

Marco Concari, Director at Steer Davies Gleave, who has been following this project from the early stages, points out how Marconi Airport — the seventh busiest Italian airport with around 6.6 million passengers a year — and Bologna Centrale Railway Station — with an annual ridership of 58 million per year — are two dynamic locations within the local and national context. The new service provided by the People Mover will considerably improve the accessibility of the Bologna Airport by integrating it with the high speed rail network.

For enquiries on our Lenders’ Technical Advisory services for any infrastructure project across the globe, please contact our Technical Due Diligence team at TDD@sdgworld.net.