Florence’s mobility department has taken a cue from the artistic masters of the city’s past. In the 15th century, Florentine painters perfected the use of perspective, bringing depth to images by guiding the lines towards a single point. By choosing such a focal point for its work on sustainability, the city found that its disparate departments could be brought together to form a more cohesive whole.
“The first milestone was when the municipality decided to join the Covenant of Mayors in 2010,” recalls Alessandra Barbieri, Manager of the Fundraising and European Projects Office of the City of Florence’s City Manager Department. Before that, sustainability was something that each department of the city handled separately. Now, equipped with a comprehensive Sustainable Energy Action Plan, the city was united by a single vision.
To effectively implement this plan, Florence brought together around 20 departments coordinated by the City Manager. “We created this working group for sustainability, which is now the Climate Task Force of the EU Mission for 100 Climate Neutral and Smart Cities by 2030,” explains Barbieri. Breaking down departmental silos and fostering a holistic strategy was essential for tackling climate change, as was the highly engaged approach of the former Mayor Dario Nardella.
Marking mobility
The first task was to set up the emission inventory to identify the sectors with the highest emissions, and then make a plan to curb them. “Mobility was the main emitting sector,” says Barbieri, at 34%, beating buildings by just one percent to come into the lead. To cut back transport emissions, one of the most important things was to improve the main alternative, public transport. Florence invested in an extensive tramway system with seven lines connecting major services and neighbouring municipalities together with a park and ride system.
🇮🇹🚗34% of the pollution of Florence comes from mobility.
Tartaglia, Director of Infrastructure and Mobility of @comunefi says in a video for @Userchi_H2020 that Florence “is aiming to become the national cathedral of electric mobility”.https://t.co/YcrbOGVzFX pic.twitter.com/Ny7uqaCAuK
— Eurocities (@EUROCITIES) October 12, 2021
Florence was the first city in Italy to deploy recharging columns
Florence also introduced a range of shared mobility services. “We have developed services like e-bike sharing, e-car sharing, and e-scooters, all focusing on sustainability,” says Barbieri. With the promotion of electric options, the city also had to put the infrastructure into place to support this. “Florence was the first city in Italy to deploy recharging columns, as part of a project connecting northern Europe to southern Italy,” recalls Barbieri.
Despite the initially limited numbers of electric cars, these early efforts built a foundation for today’s more advanced systems. Public awareness campaigns and an initiative that provided free recharging at the columns for about five years helped encourage people to be confident and invest in electric vehicles and betoken the changes to come.
Charging on the up
Florence’s charging infrastructure quickly expanded as electric options became more popular. By 2018,also thanks to EU project funds, there were 95 slow (3-7 kW) charging points available for public use, with an additional 90 reserved for municipal staff. There were also 95 semi-fast (11-22 kW) charging points and eight fast (50 kW) charging points, six of which are reserved for taxis.
In 2018, a reference year for the e-charging strategy, the city supplied a total of 439,948 kWh of electricity for electric vehicle charging – enough to power more than 2 million kilometres of electric travel. The city also released 70 licenses for electric taxis to create a more sustainable fleet.
Old and new
The switch to electric delivers the greatest climate payoff if the electricity itself is generated sustainably. If all the electricity for your car is coming from a coal-fired power plant, the virtue is severely curtailed. Florence does not fall at either extreme, but the city is making an effort to produce sustainable energy locally to power vehicles and meet other electricity needs.
We are balancing the opportunity coming from the areas that are not protected with the ones that are within the cultural heritage boundaries
A challenge, however, comes with balancing the preservation of the city’s rich cultural heritage with the need for modern infrastructure. Landscape barriers limit the installation of solar panels in the city centre, for example. As a result, sustainable power generation, including solar panels and mini-hydro systems, is possible mainly outside the cultural heritage area.
Florence’s unique historical centre means it has to take a special approach to electric vehicle charging infrastructure.
This includes limiting private car use in favour of cleaner options 🚲⚡️🚘
Discover more about our replicator city, Florence ➡️ https://t.co/dELade9VWr pic.twitter.com/BU0ItOhj85
— USER-CHI (@Userchi_H2020) May 17, 2021
“We are balancing the opportunity coming from the areas that are not protected with the ones that are within the cultural heritage boundaries,” Barbieri explains.
Incentives
Collaboration between the public and private sectors is key to Florence’s strategy. “We are bringing together private sector managers and municipal representatives,” Barbieri says, to create dialogue and shared understanding of the city’s needs and those of the companies operating or seeking to operate within it.
While public subsidies for free recharging have ceased, incentives for purchasing electric vehicles, including second-hand ones, remain in place. “This helps make electric cars more accessible to a broader segment of the population, which is essential to the just transition” Barbieri points out, enlarging the opportunity in choosing e-vehicle. This is in contrast to schemes elsewhere where subsidies being only available for new electric cars means that only the already wealthy can benefit.
Engaging through User-Chi
Initially, when the e-charging was free, the payment could only be done with a user card from the municipality. Today, with a multimodal and multivendor system, several mobile apps can be used, allowing users to pay with prepaid cards, credit cards, or e-payment system.
Florence is now testing the InCar App, which would permit the payment of the Insoc charging solution, a bike sharing station and solar generation station rolled into one. The app, developed as part of the EU-funded User-Chi project, through which Eurocities helps cities enhance their electric vehicle charging, lets users locate charging points across the city, booking and paying for them easily.
If people are investing in electric bikes, we want to give them the opportunity to recharge
Florence is engaging in User-Chi to help develop guidelines for itself and other cities looking to design charging stations that satisfy user needs, share best practices, and test InSoc. “If people are investing in electric bikes,” Barbieri says, “we want to give them the opportunity to recharge. Now it’s just a pilot, but if it works then we will think about how to expand it.”
Raising a green shield
Another measure in Florence intended to convert people away from private cars is the low emission zone.
The low emission zone is a designated area within the city centre where only vehicles below a certain pollution threshold can enter. Thinking about the whole city, Florence developed the Green Shield project . Based on 81 automatic gates, it aims at progressive introduction of prohibitions and/or charges for accessing the urban centre.
The system forbids access to the most polluting vehicles and heavy-duty vehicles, and introduces congestion charge for tourist buses which are not using the reserved area provided in the outside parking system. A congestion charge for other vehicle categories is under planning as phase two of Green Shield action.
A changed mindset
“It’s amazing how people have changed,” says Barbieri, “When we started, it was difficult to convey that sustainability is a necessity, not a choice. Now, people are much more engaged and supportive.”
We have to trust in people so that we can change together
Reflecting on this change, Barbieri emphasises the importance of public engagement and the evolving perception of sustainability. “When we show that another way is possible, people are ready and willing to change their behaviour. We have to trust in people so that we can change together,” she says.
Thanks to continuous awareness campaigns, such as Florence for Climate, and demonstrating the tangible benefits of sustainable mobility, like the Florentines of the 16th Century, contemporary residents have gained a new perspective. As a result, Florence is on its way to being fully charged for electric mobility, and to its greater goal of becoming completely climate-neutral by 2030.
