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In high-density contexts, such as urban or metropolitan areas, decision makers and mobility managers have to adopt suitable strategies to reduce the use of private cars and promote public transport. Indeed, such strategies may help abate the negative impacts of transportation systems (congestion, air and noise pollution, etc.). However, appropriate measures are only effective if based on the provision of high quality public transport services. Such aims can be achieved by organising public transport within an integrated framework where rail/metro services are the high-performing mobility backbone and bus services have a feeder function, increasing the geographical coverage of rail services. However, since a faulty train cannot be easily removed or overtaken, a rail/metro system is highly vulnerable to system breakdowns which could entail significant reductions in system quality. Suitable intervention strategies therefore have to be developed to manage rail system emergencies. The aim of this paper is to provide a method to determine optimal intervention strategies in the case of a metro system failure. Since in real contexts an exhaustive approach has to be excluded due to the huge number of alternative solutions to be evaluated, it is necessary to adopt or develop appropriate algorithms to obtain sub-optimal solutions within suitable computational times. Hence a Neighbourhood Search Algorithm (NSA) to identify the optimal solution is applied and tested in the case of a real metro line in order to show the feasibility of our proposal.

A rail system may be considered a useful tool for reducing vehicular flows on a road system (i.e. cars and trucks), especially in high-density contexts such as urban and metropolitan areas where greenhouse gas emissions need to be abated. In particular, since travellers maximise their own utility, variations in mobility choices can be induced only by significantly improving the level-of-service of public transport. Our specific proposal is to identify the economic and environmental effects of implementing an innovative signalling system (which would reduce passenger waiting times) by performing a cost-benefit analysis based on a feasibility threshold approach. Hence, it is necessary to calculate long-term benefits and compare them with intervention costs. In this context, a key factor to be considered is travel demand estimation in current and future conditions. This approach was tested on a regional rail line in southern Italy to show the feasibility and utility of the proposed methodology.

This paper describes the contents of the new Hydrogeological Map of the City of Rome (1:50,000 scale). The map extends to the entire municipality (1285 km2) and is based on both the most recent scientific studies on the groundwater field and new survey activities carried out in order to fill the data gaps in several areas of the examined territory. The map is the result of a combination of different urban groundwater expertise and Geographic Information System (GIS)-based mapping performed using the most recent available data and has been produced with the intention of furnishing the City of Rome with the most recent and updated information regarding groundwater.

A rail system represents a useful tool for reducing flows (cars and trucks) on a road system in high density contexts (such as urban and metropolitan areas) with a view to abating greenhouse gas emissions. In particular, since rail passengers maximise their own utility, variations in mobility choices can be induced only by significantly improving the level-of-service of public transport. By defining feasibility thresholds, our proposal is to analyse the economic and environmental feasibility of a new signalling system which would increase service frequencies of a rail system, thereby reducing passenger waiting times. This approach was applied to a regional rail line in southern Italy to show the usefulness of the proposed methodology.

The optimal management of unresectable locally advanced non-small-cell lung cancer in older patients has not been defined to date. The present phase II study was planned to evaluate the activity and safety of platinum-based induction chemotherapy followed by concurrent chemoradiotherapy in elderly patients with locally advanced non-small-cell lung cancer. Patients received two cycles of paclitaxel (175 mg/m) and carboplatin (area under the curve: 5) day 1, every 3 weeks. Chemoradiotherapy (thoracic radiation therapy) was initiated on day 42 and consisted of 1.8 Gy daily, five times per week over 5 weeks (45.0 Gy target dose) followed by 10 2.0 Gy daily fractions. Concomitant chemotherapy was weekly paclitaxel 50 mg/mq followed by weekly carboplatin at an area under the curve of 2. The eligibility for patients: age 70 or older and histologically documented untreated non-small-cell lung cancer, locally advanced, unresectable, stage III A N2 bulky or III B. Thirty consecutive patients were enrolled onto the study. The median age was 73 (range 70-76). According to the intention-to-treat analysis, 1 month after the end of combined chemoradiotherapy, we observed complete and partial responses in one and 19 of the 30 patients, respectively, for an overall response rate of 66% (95% confidence interval, 45-76%). Median progression-free survival was 8.7 months (95% confidence interval, 3.4-37.8) and median survival was 15 months (95% confidence interval, 4.2-52.1). During the treatment, 12 patients (40.0%) experienced grade 3-4 neutropenia, two patients neutropenic fever, and three patients grade 3 anaemia and grade 3 thrombocytopenia, respectively. Grade 3 oesophagitis, during concomitant radiotherapy, was observed in six patients (20.0%). No treatment-related mortality was reported. The investigated sequential approach including induction chemotherapy followed by concurrent chemoradiotherapy appears safe and seems a reasonable chance for the treatment of locally advanced non-small-cell lung cancer in the elderly population.