• Energy Research
• 11. Sustainability close
• Aurora Universities Network close
• Transport Research close

In this paper we argue for the need to apply a cognitive approach to understand deep dynamics and determinants of technological evolutions. After examining main contributions from innovation studies to the conceptualization of innovation and change in complex socio-technical environments, we highlight the contribution coming from the application of the cognitive approach to evolutionary studies on technologies and we introduce the concept of technological memory as an interpretative tool to understand those changes. We discuss our hypothesis with reference to several observations carried out in different local contexts – Mexico, India and Italy – in relation to technological change in the water sector. In those cases deliberate attempts to substitute traditional technologies with modern ones led to interesting trajectories of change ranging from the collapse of old technologies to the development of multifaceted hybridization patterns. Tema. Journal of Land Use, Mobility and Environment, 2014: INPUT 2014 - Smart City: planning for energy, transportation and sustainability of the urban system

Starting from the relationship between urban planning and mobility management, TeMA has gradually expanded the view of the covered topics, always remaining in the groove of rigorous scientific in-depth analysis. This section of the Journal, Review Notes, is the expression of a continuous updating of emerging topics concerning relationships between urban planning, mobility and environment, through a collection of short scientific papers written by young researchers. The Review Notes are made of four parts. Each section examines a specific aspect of the broader information storage within the main interests of TeMA Journal. In particular, the Urban planning literature review section aims at presenting recent books and journals, within global scientific panorama, on selected topics and issues. This contribution aims at defining the definition and intervention domain of ecological transition. The outbreak of a novel coronavirus and consequent health, economic and social crisis is leading to a new era: significant financial resources, plenty room for economic manoeuvres may turn the ongoing pandemic into an opportunity, for the next years, to build more sustainable societies and environments. Within this scenario, urban areas play an essential role, as proved in the second paragraph with the support of interesting scientific publications, which are reviewed in the contribution. TeMA - Journal of Land Use, Mobility and Environment, Vol 15 No 1 (2022): The city challenges and external agents. Methods, tools and best practices

Starting from the relationship between urban planning and mobility management, TeMA has gradually expanded the view of the covered topics, always remaining in the groove of rigorous scientific in-depth analysis. This section of the Journal, Review Notes, is the expression of a continuous updating of emerging topics concerning relationships between urban planning, mobility and environment, through a collection of short scientific papers written by young researchers. The Review Notes are made of four parts. Each section examines a specific aspect of the broader information storage within the main interests of TeMA Journal. In particular, the Urban planning literature review section aims at presenting recent books and journals, within global scientific panorama, on selected topics and issues. This contribution aims at delving into the most severe effects due to heat waves and presenting three interesting and significant scientific books and journal that present effective adaptation strategies to limit climate crisis and improve Mediterranean resilience towards more frequent and severe heat waves. The second contribution of the Review Notes for TeMA vo. 15 highlights the need for integrated action to address the climate crisis in the Mediterranean region, bringing together the strengths and weaknesses of its shores, despite social, economic and political differences. Moreover, the extreme weather events that are occurring throughout Europe, from the south to the north, show how the Mediterranean area is particularly sensitive to climate change-related events. TeMA - Journal of Land Use, Mobility and Environment, Vol 15 No 2 (2022): The city challenges and external agents. Methods, tools and best practices

Starting from the relationship between urban planning and mobility management, TeMA has gradually expanded the view of the covered topics, always following a rigorous scientific in-depth analysis. This section of the Journal, Review Notes, is a continuous update about emerging topics concerning relationships among urban planning, mobility and environment thanks to a collection of short scientific papers written by young researchers. The Review Notes are made up of five parts. Each section examines a specific aspect of the broader information storage within the main interests of the TeMA Journal. In particular: The Town Planning International Rules and Legislation Overview section aims at presenting the latest updates in the territorial and urban legislative sphere. The Covid-19 pandemic is causing a major impact on energy systems. Improving the energy efficiency of urban areas is now the cornerstone of scientific community and the European Commission discussions. Thus, the content of this review note aims at carrying out an analysis of the latest documents of the European Commission before and during the slow recovery from Covid-19 with the aim of identifying the priorities and areas on which to intervene to reduce energy consumption in different territorial contexts. TeMA - Journal of Land Use, Mobility and Environment, Vol 14 No 1 (2021): The city challenges and external agents. Methods, tools and best practices

Prefigurare assetti urbani futuri nei quali le tecnologie consentano azioni e interazioni fra gli individui inimmaginabili solo pochi anni fa, ha da sempre rappresentato una delle tematiche di ricerca ed approfondimento più interessanti delle scienze della città anche se, probabilmente, non sufficientemente considerate nel dibattito urbanistico del nostro paese degli ultimi venti anni. L’accelerazione verso tali tematiche è stata consistente a partire dai recenti bandi della Comunità Europea e del Ministero dell’Istruzione e della Ricerca Italiano sulle: Smart City. In questa importante svolta, supportata dalle numerose aziende produttrici di tecnologie, dispositivi e media, sembra tuttavia verificarsi una discontinuità nell’ambito della definizione teorica dei processi connessi alla strutturazione ed alla gestione della Smart City. I numerosi approfondimenti sul tema sembrano svilupparsi lontano dalle scienze del governo delle trasformazioni della città e distanti dal principale ambito disciplinare di riferimento: l’urbanistica. Tale discrasia è probabilmente riconducibile a due fattori: da una parte la marginalizzazione del tema relativo a città ed innovazione tecnologica nel dibattito urbanistico nazionale concentratosi su altri, pur importanti, argomenti e, dall’altra l’approccio marcatamente aziendale che la recente accelerazione ha subito e che, in una logica di mercato, tende ad evitare possibili razionalizzazioni dei processi. All’interno del testo verranno proposti approcci, ipotesi e riflessioni probabilmente non strutturate per definire un ordinato sviluppo teorico ma, probabilmente in grado di aprire dimensioni del ragionamento ed indicare possibili scenari che possano essere successivamente ripresi, confutati e riarticolati dagli altri studiosi delle scienze urbane per definirne un nuovo modo di interpretare e tentare di orientare lo sviluppo urbano. Molte delle riflessioni presentate nel seguito rappresentano semplici spunti che necessitano di ulteriori approfondimenti e sviluppi maggiormente strutturati. Ma pare utile avviare un ragionamento che dimostri come la proposizione del modello “smart” per i moderni sistemi urbani non derivi unicamente da necessità tecnicisticamente aziendali, che spingono all’utilizzo di device di controllo urbano, ma possano essere visti come uno stadio evolutivo della città del quale già da tempo si erano prefigurati gli sviluppi. In altre parole obiettivo di questo paper è quello di tentare di ricondurre le dinamiche di sviluppo della SC nel loro naturale alveo di sviluppo teorico-operativo, anche recuperando approcci e riferimenti metodologici riconducibili allo studio del rapporto fra nuove tecnologie e trasformazioni del sistema urbano da tempo sviluppati in sede di ricerca ma mai concretamente adottati per la definizione di nuovi processi di governo della città. Tema. Journal of Land Use, Mobility and Environment, Vol 6, N° 1 (2013): Smart Cities: Researches, Projects and Good Practices for the City

One of the main problems that affects modern cities is connected to transport/mobility. Urban transport is currently based on car use; the transition to the use of more sustainable means of transport is happening slowly. Bicycles used as main way of transport, combined with walking, it’s a successful solution for many towns to really bring traffic and congestion down. For their high density and their short time travels, towns are the best places (in comparison to long time travels as merchandise transport) to reduce the green houses gasses emitted promoting walking, cycling and public transport. For this reason the European Union is directly founding different projects that boost urban cycling. Many examples presented in this paper where collected by an European project. This project sectioned best practices and excellences in cycling as the so called cycle cities: Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Seville,…cities that have recognized the importance of cycling as a solution to traffic congestion. But how is it possible to transfer these experiences to others realities? The scope of this article is to show the sustainability of cycling according to socio-economic (social and economic sustainability) and environmental terms (environmental sustainability). For this reason is proposed a CBA (Cost and Benefits Analysis) methodology specific to evidence the advantages of investments in cycling made by public authorities or private companies both, to promote and realize ecological infrastructures. One of the main problems that affects modern cities is connected to transport/mobility. Urban transport is currently based on car use; the transition to the use of more sustainable means of transport is happening slowly. Bicycles used as main way of transport, combined with walking, it’s a successful solution for many towns to really bring traffic and congestion down. For their high density and their short time travels, towns are the best places (in comparison to long time travels as merchandise transport) to reduce the green houses gasses emitted promoting walking, cycling and public transport. For this reason the European Union is directly founding different projects that boost urban cycling. Many examples presented in this paper where collected by an European project. This project sectioned best practices and excellences in cycling as the so called cycle cities: Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Seville,…cities that have recognized the importance of cycling as a solution to traffic congestion. But how is it possible to transfer these experiences to others realities? The scope of this article is to show the sustainability of cycling according to socio-economic (social and economic sustainability) and environmental terms (environmental sustainability). For this reason is proposed a CBA (Cost and Benefits Analysis) methodology specific to evidence the advantages of investments in cycling made by public authorities or private companies both, to promote and realize ecological infrastructures. Tema. Journal of Land Use, Mobility and Environment, Vol 8, N° 1 (2015): Cities, Energy and Climate Change

Public transport systems can be characterised by a schedule-based or a frequency-based framework according to the kind of service to be operated. In the former case, specific departure and arrival times are set for each run and disclosed to the users; in the latter, instead, it is necessary to maintain a certain headway between two successive runs, rather than a specific timetable structure. This paper focuses on modelling frequency-based systems, which can be described by means of the so-called Merry-Go-Round (MGR) paradigm. The paradigm is first discussed and the related analytical formulation is presented; the role of the terminal station layout is then investigated within this framework. Finally, in order to show the effectiveness of the proposed formulation, it was implemented in the case of a real-scale metro line.

Climate change is a current phenomenon: the temperatures rise, rainfall patterns are changing, glaciers melt and the average global sea level is rising. It is expected that these changes will continue and that the extreme weather events, such as floods and droughts, will become more frequent and intense. The impact and vulnerability factors for nature, for the economy and for our health are different, depending on the territorial, social and economic aspects. The current scientific debate is focused on the need to formulate effective policies for adaptation and mitigation to climate change. The city plays an important role in this issue: it emits the most greenhouse gas emissions (more than 60% of the world population currently lives in urban areas) and the city is more exposed and vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Urban planning and territorial governance play a crucial role in this context: the international debate on the sustainability of urban areas is increasing. It’s necessary to adapt the tools of building regulations to increase the quality of energy - environment of the cities. Tema. Journal of Land Use, Mobility and Environment, 2014: INPUT 2014 - Smart City: planning for energy, transportation and sustainability of the urban system

The relationship between cities and energy consumption has been of great interest for the scientific community for over twenty years. Most of the energy consumption, indeed, occurs in cities because of the high concentration of human activities. Thus, cities are responsible for a big share of carbon dioxide emissions (CO2). However, the debate on this topic is still open, mainly because of the heterogeneity of published studies in the selection, definition and measurement of the urban features influencing energy consumption and CO2 emissions, as well as in the choice of the energy sectors to be considered, in the territorial scale of analysis, and in the geographical distribution of the sample. Therefore, the goal of this research is to systematize and compare the approach, methodology and results of the relevant literature on the relationship between cities and energy consumption over the last twenty years. Furthermore, this critical review identifies the knowledge gap between what is known and what is still under debate and, based on that, it proposes a conceptual framework that will help to outline a new direction for future research and support local policy makers in the definition of strategies and actions that can effectively reduce urban energy use and CO2 emissions. Tema. Journal of Land Use, Mobility and Environment, Vol 10, No 3 (2017): Methods, tools and best practices to increase the capacity of urban systems to adapt to natural and man-made changes