Moscarelli et al. City Territ Archit (2017) 4:13 DOI 10.1186/s40410-017-0069-x RESEARCH ARTICLE Open Access Regenerating small and medium sized stations in Italian inland areas by the opportunity of the cycle tourism, as territorial infrastructure Rossella Moscarelli*, Paolo Pileri and Alessandro Giacomel Abstract This study aims at demonstrating how cycle tourism could activate a regeneration of small and medium sized stations in inland areas, able to involve also territorial and urban areas hosting these stations. Starting point of this research is the issue of the small and medium sized Italian stations, mostly unused even if they are still active as rail service. Since control of trains’ trafc is organized only in bigger railway yards, small stations are gradually becoming empty contain- ers: ghost stations, without any railway personnel. Thanks to the potentiality of the cycle tourism, riding slow through landscapes, it becomes possible to valorize and safeguard this heritage, not only exploiting its potentiality as shift- node between train and bike, but also imaging a systemic strategy triggering urban, territorial and social reactivation. Main challenge was to experiment how another model of mobility, the cycle tourism, able to promote a territorial project preferring to pass slowly through the inland areas, avoided by the fast infrastructural lines, could contribute in such regeneration process. In order to validate this intuition, it was carried out a project of four stations in proximity of the cycle tourist path VENTO, along the Po River. These stations were transformed in “green mobility hubs”, where shifting from train to bicycle and vice versa. This becomes the occasion to imagining new functions hosted in empty spaces of stations (both internal and external): they will provide cycle tourists with territorial info and specifc services, such as repair areas and bikes and baggage safekeeping and both tourists and local inhabitants with social activities in order to bring them to live again station’s area. These functions want to generate an expectation, both in tourists and local people, to rediscover the territory around: in this way stations reassume their role of urban and territorial gates. Keywords: Urban and territorial regeneration, Cycle tourism, Small and medium sized railway stations, Inland areas Introduction possibility for urban space with enjoyment of the city In this work we focus on a new opportunity that can scenery (Ye-Kyeong and Hye-Jin 2015). Even in con- arise matching together cycle tourism and stations. From temporary city, stations act as a symbolic presence (Lee this perspective, designing a strategy for possible reuses 2003) and railways can lead to economic growth and the of small and medium sized stations implies not only the revitalization of urban area, especially in rural and inland increase of rail services with positive efects on the train areas stations where they involve also a social and territo- transport policy, but also the occasion to regenerate rial dimension: “Do much to sustain small towns in the urban spaces where stations are located and their sur- countryside by reinforcing the local economy and provid- roundings. Indeed, railway station is not simply a trans- ing a magnet, albeit on a small scale, for future growth. porting facility, but also a heritage with a regenerative Country stations are often the main social and business focal point of rural areas, locations where tourist ser- *Correspondence: [email protected] vices are promoted […] both a means of access to other Politecnico di Milano, Piazza Leonardo da Vinci 32, 20133 Milano, Italy © The Author(s) 2017. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. Moscarelli et al. City Territ Archit (2017) 4:13 Page 2 of 14 places and a center for local enterprise and cooperation” small and medium sized, are regarded as points of tran- (Edwards 1997). sit and nothing more, that are no places (Alexander and Tis heritage of small and medium sized stations is Hamilton 2015). mostly located in inland Italian areas, distant from met- According to this standpoint, the paper frst illustrates ropolitan areas of the Country. In these territories, the actual condition of the railway heritage in Italy, man- where the accessibility is one of the main critical issue, aged by RFI Spa, Rete Ferroviaria Italiana. It was deeply rail mobility assumes a relevant value in determining the analyzed critical condition of small and medium sized access to other services or places that are citizenship con- stations: they are active but they are becoming empty stituents, such as health and school and cultural facilities containers (RFI 2002), because it is not necessary the (UVAL 2014). Not only the provision of adequate trans- presence of any railway personnel, generating degrada- port service primarily constitutes a pre-requisite for the tion both in train service and urban context. Even if they development of inland territories, but it can also provide represent most part1 of the Italian railway heritage, they momentum for local growth. Identifying innovative solu- are not exploit in their potentiality for what concern the tions, both managerial and related with a possible inte- infrastructural, intermodal, territorial, urban and social gration with other sustainable mobility, is a big challenge aspects. It is described also the classifying method used for local development policy. Tese preliminary consid- by RFI to defne its stations. Tis aspect could be really erations lead to the identifcation of some criteria to help interesting since classifcation of railway stations is a shaping a mobility strategy for the inland areas. One of powerful tool for strategic transport and land use plan- these consists of encouraging modal shift towards collec- ning, considering station in terms of node -the connect- tive transport, improving and relaunching rail system. edness with other places- and urban place-possible Promoting exchange of habits of travel from car to rail activities around the station (Reusser et al. 2007). Exist- is seen as a key strategy also by the EU (Brons et al. 2009). ing classifcation relies strongly on the indicator ‘‘passen- Indeed, already in 2011, the European Commission ger frequency’’, which focuses on transport related issues, announced its ofcial transport policy in the white paper blending performance with preconditions at a given site. “roadmap to a single European transport area—towards a On the contrary, classifcations based on the relevant competitive and resource efcient transport system” (EU demands and conditions given by context could lead to 2011) in which rail played a strategic part. Tis is valid clearly interpretable classes and supports multi-perspec- both for urban and rural areas, since fostering the rail tive strategic planning for railway stations. Tis kind of system implies the reinforce of networks, able to connect systematic approach allows for a better understanding of even isolated areas, as explained before. Propensity to the interrelations between railway stations and their con- travel by rail depends not only on the transport efciency, text (Zemp et al. 2010a, b). but also on the rail services ofered and on the access to Despite the current ideas on the regeneration of sta- them (Brons et al. 2009). Rail services and a high level of tions, it is explained how and why cycle tourism can accessibility could be related even with the use of bicy- innovate such strategies, considering its peculiarity and cle, providing secure parking, fexible rental especially potentiality in promoting territorial plan (Pileri 2015). for daily or long trips use (Givoni and Rietveld 2014) or Tis new kind of synergy, was applied designing a coop- an easy transport of bicycle on the train. Combined use eration between cycle tourist backbone VENTO, the pro- between bike and train represents a valid alternative to ject of the longest cycle tourist path in Italy, along the Po car and should be promoted by specifc urban and terri- river, and small and medium stations in its proximity. It torially policies. Good results of these strategies, in terms was considered how bicycle and train could be strategic of sustainable transport habits, are already acting in assets to exploit, fostering also positive efects on the northern countries of Europe, such as Holland (Martens urban environment and on the territory. 2006), Germany, Denmark or Switzerland. In addition to these aspects about rail services provided by stations, The issue: abandonment of small and medium recent mobility’s paradigms suggest that time spent in sized stations inactivity (such as waiting at stations) is as important as Understanding the actual condition of railway heritage in the time spent in motion (Bissell 2009). Terefore, time Italy was the frst step to elaborate a regeneration strat- spent waiting train or shifting from transport means to egy. Active railway lines are formed by more than other represents an occasion to provide services able to 16,000 km (http://www.rf.it 2017). Just a minimal part of reactivate both internal and external spaces of the sta- tions. In this way, rail stations have come to be seen as places within urban and social environment. On the con- 1 According to data available on the ofcial website of RFI, smallest stations trary, at present, not only in Italy, stations, especially if represent more than 90% of the total amount of Italian stations. Moscarelli et al. City Territ Archit (2017) 4:13 Page 3 of 14 them, 6%, consists of high speed lines, connecting 11 big- are already reused in diferent ways, thanks to these kind gest Italian cities.2 On the opposite, most of them, are of agreement.