Bologna, Italy
Massimo Iosa Ghini’s Marconi Express is a monorail shuttle that will link the Guglielmo Marconi International Airport with the central railway station of Bologna, one of the most important nodes of the high-speed railway network of Italy. The distance of the trip is 5 km.
It only takes approximately seven and a half minutes to get from one point to the other.
For its environmental and eco-design considerations, the monorail shuttle won a recent 2020 Green Good Design® Award from The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies and The Chicago Athenaeum.
The project also won a 2019 International Architecture Award® from The Chicago Athenaeum.
The People Mover is designed to meet the expectations of air travellers and will contribute to the development of a key infrastructure for Bologna, the Marconi Airport.
The airport is under major expansion works that will ensure a perfect integration with the People Mover.
The infrastructure will be built by Marconi Express SpA, a special purpose entity formed to construct the works and manage the transport service.
On a technical level, the People Mover is a constrained guide mass transport system, powered electrically, fully automated, i.e. without a driver, and equipped with platform screen doors to protect passengers.
This type of infrastructure ensures a connection that is:
Fast: only 7 min 20 sec to get form Bologna Central Station to the Airport.
The frequency-time is an average waiting time of 3 min 45 seconds.
The track is dedicated exclusively to the link.
Comfortable: the cars are specifically designed for the comfort and needs of air travelers.
The stations are easily recognizable and close to the airport terminal and to the Bologna high- speed rail station and well indicated by dedicated signage.
The coordinated design of the infrastructure is by STS, an engineering company from Bologna. Massimo Iosa Ghini developed the concept of the architectural project.
The Marconi Express uses the technology by the Swiss company Intamin, world leader in the field.
The cars, with a capacity of 50 people each, will run on a monorail at about 6/7 meters from the ground.
The estimated average waiting time is only 3 min 45 sec and this will therefore easily allow meeting the forecasted demand.
Today approximately 800,000 passengers per year use the station-airport bus line.
This number would increase to 1 million, according to the recent analysis by the Bologna transport company.
The system can carry over 5 million passengers a year thanks to the 3 cars that will operate from the beginning.
If necessary, a fourth car could be put in service.
Finally, a fundamental feature of the People mover is to adapt the trip frequency to the demand with a moment-by-moment detection system.
This flexibility ensures significant benefits for customers but also allows the optimization of the operating costs of the infrastructure.
A bridge about 90 meters long will be built over two roads that run between the city and the airport: the motorway Milano-Napoli and the Bologna ring road.
Designed by the architect Iosa Ghini, the bridge is characterized by two portals at its ends.
The Marconi Express is also highly ecological and sustainable: thanks to it, thousands of cars could be left turned off while the 13% of the energy for the trains will be produced by a “photovoltaic ribbon” panels integrated on the runway.
The “ribbon” avoids 300 tonnes of CO2 emissions, equivalently to 14,000 trees.
Project: The People Mover Marconi Express
Architects: Iosa Ghini Associati
Client: Marconi Express SpA
Photographers: Rhodri Jones and Nicola Schiaffino
