Ex-ante assessment of road transport emissions: application to the Italian case

Today, the worlwide communities have to deal with the large number of road vehicles while preserving the economic sustainability and, at the same time, the environmental quality. Following the Kyoto Protocol many policies have been implemented in order to reduce the negative effects of pollutant emissions. Many of them refer to transpor-tation sector. In Italy, they have been implemented without ex-ante assessment of the impacts and will not be effective. In the paper, an ex-ante assessment method-ology of transport policies, with a focus on the assessment of pollutant emissions, has been proposed. The proposed methodology for road emission is based on quantitative methods and models. It allows a more accurate estimation of trans-portation attributes used in the forecasting analysis of road emissions. The methodology was applied to the Italian context in realtion to two scenari-os: short and medium-long terms. Useful indications in terms of policy making could be derived. All policies that will be implemented in the next future produce, in the short term scenario, a reduction of pollutant emissions, but in the long term scenario they will not be enoght. Further policies are required to meet the targets of Kyoto Protocol, as well as: addressing demand to low carbon fuel, promotion of optimization and grouping private road transport, construction of new transporta-tion infrastructures and expansion of existing ones, promotion of environmental-friendly transportation modes, promotion of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), editing of Transportation Plans.