The first edition of NME-Next Mobility Exhibition, the Fiera Milano event dedicated to sustainable collective mobility, closed last mo October.

Highly qualified operators attended the event to discover the novelties of the 119 exhibiting companies and the contents of the rich educational offer.

Thirty-one conferences, more than 200 speakers and 50 hours of training to cover all the points on the rich agenda of the mobility world, swept by the wave of energy and digital transition, the sharing mobility revolution and the opportunities of Mobility as a Service (MaaS).

In fact, the rich programme of conferences was devised by the Technical Scientific Committee chaired by Professor Pierluigi Coppola (Politecnico di Milano, Department of Mechanics), whose members include international associations (UITP - International Association of Public Transport and IRU - World Road Transport Organisation), Italian ministries (Ministry of Infrastructure and Sustainable Mobility, Ministry of Economic Development, Ministry of the Ecological Transition, Ministry of Tourism), academic realities such as Bocconi University and the University of Campania, as well as the Conference of Regions and Autonomous Provinces, Trenord, Lifegate, Domus Air, Ernst & Young, Studio Malena, Innovup, Club Italia, transport associations (Agens, Anav, Asstra) and different associations representing the various nuances of the energy transition: Anfia, Anie e-Mobility, Assosharing, Enea, Federmetano, Federmotorizzazione, H2IT (Italian Association for Hydrogen and Fuel Cells), Globe Italia, Motus-E and Unem (Unione Energie per la Mobilità).

This was all supported by Agens, Anav and Asstra, associations representing local public transport companies and a qualified component of the entire road passenger transport sector.

The event showed that the market - in terms of technological offerings and resource know-how - is ready to face the new challenges of sustainable mobility for people, but work needs to be carried out on the appropriate infrastructure, regulations and practices to support ongoing innovation.

The extensive programme of conferences and meetings concluded with the presentation of the Italian Centre for Sustainable Mobility was presented at NME, a public-private partnership: 25 universities, and their research centres, have joined forces with 24 large companies active in the field of mobility and infrastructure, with the aim of accompanying the green and digital transition of the sector in a sustainable way. This is an ambitious project, which envisages an investment of 394 million euros for the first three years (2023-2025), involving 696 researchers from the partner institutions and 574 new recruits, and is intended to be a real tool for growth and development in a key sector such as mobility, which is estimated to reach a total value at national level of 220 billion euros in 2030, absorbing 12% of the workforce in Italy.

The centre will be structured with a central point in Milan and 14 nodes distributed throughout the country, guaranteeing the territorial rebalancing that is one of the priorities of the NRP.

Right precisely from the concluding plenary session was set an ideal bridge to the next edition of the event, which will be held at Fiera Milano from 23 to 25 October 2024.  The first results of the activities of this new reality will be shared with NME's Scientific Technical Committee and reported at the next meeting.

PREVIEWS AND NOVELTIES ON STAGE IN MILAN

NME's debut on the national and international exhibition scene was accompanied by several previews of exhibitors, who chose the Milanese stage to present their proposals to the market.

There were many new features on the bus front: Industria Italiana Autobus formalised its partnership with the Portuguese CaetanoBus for the production and marketing in Italy of hydrogen-powered city buses, presenting H2.City, a vehicle based on Toyota Fuel Cell technology; Irizar presented two new sustainable vehicles, the 12.160-metre tram Irizar ie and the 12.750-metre hybrid Irizar i3le Isuzu brought to Fiera Milano the eight-metre 100% electric Novociti Volt, while Karsan presented the e-Ata 12, a vehicle that won the Sustainable Bus Awards in the Urban category; Otokar presented for the first time in Italy the six-metre electric short e-Centro C and the 600th bus distributed by Mauri Bus in Italy, a Vectio U Low Entry; Rampini launched two great new products: the six-metre electric Sixtron and the eight hydrogen-powered Eltron, the first vehicle with this type of power supply completely Made in Italy. Finally, Solaris presented the eighteen-metre full cell hydrogen-powered Urbino.

At the Next Mobility Exhibition, Iveco Bus defined the details of its return to production in Italy: while the Turin plant will produce batteries for ebuses, the Foggia plant will produce the new generation vehicles. But that's not all: it also announced a partnership with Via Transportation on autonomous driving.

The topic of autonomous driving was discussed at NME thanks to ZF, which brought the shuttle with driverless technology to Milan as a national premiere.

Big news also for long-distance services, thanks to the presence of the three main national operators: Flixbus, Itabus and Marinobus. In particular, MarinoBus and Van Hool presented for the first time the first-class 3Xclusive equipment: a revolutionary concept for top comfort and privacy, which turns long journeys into a comfortable experience.

High technology at the service of the industry was represented, among others, by the proposal of Nesteck, an innovative start-up that makes spare parts with a 3D printer, cutting costs and the risk of biblical lead times for component procurement.

On the subject of MaaS, Optibus, on the other hand, talked about the potential of the new movement module and the new electric vehicle management features of its cloud-based software.

From MaaS to SaaS the step is short: Bledsystem presented its collaboration with Atm Milano, which cuts energy consumption and CO2 emissions.

NME was also the occasion to launch Eni 's HVOlution project to give diesel a sustainable future: thanks to the ecofining technology adopted in the Venice and Gela refineries, the biofuel wants to play its part in the decarbonisation challenge, being able to cut wheel-to-wheel emissions by up to 88%.

Previews, training, scenarios, networking: the world of sustainable personal mobility has found a new focus at NME-Next Mobility Exhibition. The next appointment is in two years' time at Fiera Milano, from 23 to 25 October 2024.