The new tramway renaissance in Italy: an evaluation from an urbanistic perspective

The paper proposes to evaluate seven tram systems built in Italy as part of the tram renaissance process that has affected Western Europe since 1980s. This assessment focuses on the integration of these systems within the urban environment rather than their technical or performance aspects. Three criteria have been used in the evaluation: geometry of the route, possibility of reaching a mix of functional destinations, vitality of the demographic contest. The results show that these tram systems are generally limited to certain portions of the city and affect predominantly residential neighborhoods and some (but not all) urban polarities. After a brief introduction to the topic in section 1, methods and materials are explained in section 2. The results of tram systems evaluations are shown in section 3. Then, in section 4 the results of the individual systems are compared with each other and compared with the performances that these systems have obtained. Finally, section 5 contains possible future developments of the research.