Low level of integration among different modes of transportation and insufficient investments in sustainable and low-carbon transportation technologies are characterizing several regions in the Adriatic area, which is a highly touristic destination especially along the coastlines of Italy and Croatia. The touristic flux, which is mainly conveyed by ferries and planes but without significant connec-tions with other modes of transportation, causes serious traffic congestion problems during the summer season, not to mention neglecting the crucial issue of environmental efficiency across the Adriatic Sea.
In order to enhance the processing of passengers and to improve environmental performances of the regional maritime and aviation system, a cross-border cooperation project ADRIGREEN was started on 1 January 2019 as a part of Interreg V-A Italy-Croatia CBC Programme with an overall budget of 2,104,217.00 Euros. The project brought together some of the main Croatian and Italian ports and airports motivated to work together to make their facilities greener and more sustainable by deriving an innovative framework which will help them to adopt new sustainable models.

PROJECT ACTIVITIES AND MAIN OUTCOMES 

• Publication of an international research on suitable solutions both to lower airports/ports environmental impact and to improve intermodal and multimodal connections.
• Detailed environmental assessment of involved ports/airports.
• Realization of 2 Joint Action Plans for intermodal passengers transportation from/to ports & airports and for a sustainable management.
• Testing of 8 smart solutions in Pula, Dubrovnik, Rimini, Ancona, Pescara and Bari
• Elaboration of a cross-border capitalization technical manual with all identified and tested solutions, as well as practical indications on how to successfully replicate such actions.
• Establishment of the first Cross-border Forum of Green and Intermodal Ports and Airports to exchange knowledge with local authorities and institutions operating in the transport.
• Four international trainings for technicians and operators on how to adopt tested solutions (2 trainings focused on intermodality and multimodality, 2 trainings focused on lowering the environmental impact in airports and ports).

The consortium of 9 partners (well-balanced in terms of involvement of ports and airports) is led by Pula Airport (Croatia) including also: Dubrovnik Airport, Dubrovnik Port Authority and Pula Port Au-thority from Croatia and Rimini Airport, Abruzzo Airport, Airports of Apulia, Central Adriatic Ports Authority from Italy. The scientific guidance is provided by the University Polytechnic of Marche.

“Following recommendations from ADRIGREEN project deliverables, all included partners have iden-tified major goals for next long-term period and got clear understanding and recommendations for improvement of environmental management process in all different environment aspects.” said Nina Vojnić Žagar, project team leader (Pula Airport).

The tangible project results were mostly oriented to improving fleet of working vehicles while re-ducing the related energetic and maintenance costs and reduce even more air pollution on airport and port area.
They included purchase of electric airport tractor/tug (Airports of Apulia), electric cars and bikes (Dubrovnik port Authority), multimedia outdoor totem for smoothing passengers flow by encour-aging the use of the public transport to reach the port of Ancona (Central Adriatic Ports Authority), purchase of electric vehicles, electric scooters and bicycles to be used by airport staff for airside and landside processes optimisation (Dubrovnik Airport).

Other results relate to environmental evaluation reports and assessments, feasibility and carbon footprint studies that have been made in order to adopt new sustainable models, reducing the environmental impact of Adriatic ports and airports and pursuing a socially responsible behaviour, oriented towards the economic, social and environmental sustainability.

The project will also generate one of the first studies on the topic of “Optimization of Multimodal Transportation Approaches and related changes in airborn pollutants and greenhouse gases emis-sions: new scenarios deriving from SARS-Covid2 pandemic and possible effects on Adriatic ports and airports”. The study is conducted by the University Polytechnic of Marche whose main task in Adrigreen project was to acquire and process the highest possible amount of data to perform a complete benchmarking of all environmental indicators.