Enhancing Urban Accessibility Through MaaS: Integrating Public Transport and Pedestrian Networks Analysis in the City of Naples

The increasing demand for sustainable and efficient transportation, along with advancements in digital technology, has positioned Mobility as a Service (MaaS) as an innovative solution to the challenges of urban mobility. MaaS provides integrated mobility options satisfying users’ needs through a single digital platform. The integration of different mobility options can determine two main benefits, from the urban transformation governance perspective: an increase of the urban accessibility to activities and public spaces, that is an improvement of the usability and the urban organization; a booster for the walking and cycling paths, not only in the first and last mile, but moreover as effective mobility alternatives that are able to improve human health, liveability of spaces and quality of life. In this work, the attention is focused on the possible integration of public transport and pedestrian networks into MaaS. Using the systemic approach to measure walkability and a method that leverages open data sources and that is easily replicable to different contexts, we use the case of the City of Naples to calculate pedestrian accessibility to general services like universities, gains under MaaS lens. The main aim is to provide a methodology to measure walkability levels to universities, based on the supply of public transport, the physical and urban context characteristics of pedestrian network and the distribution of the targeted general services. Universities represent significant nodes of urban activity and their concentrated populations of students, faculty, and staff, coupled with their often-centralized or strategically distributed locations within urban environments, create a unique system for studying the complexities of multimodal transportation integration. A well-connected pedestrian network ensures that MaaS offerings are accessible and equitable, catering to the needs of all citizens, including those without access to private vehicles, and thus fulfilling the promise of inclusive mobility. This work is part of a research project within the framework of the Italian National Recovery and Resilience Plan “Centro Nazionale per la mobilità sostenibile—Spoke 8—MaaS & Innovative services”, oriented to provide a MaaS App for university community.