Infra Journal Newsroom

Infra Journal Newsroom

The widespread editorial staff of Infra Journal is made up of qualified journalists and experts in the sector. It aims to regularly provide data, information, trends and analysis for those who strive to put in motion the community to which they belong.

Naples is… a thousand colors. “But better on two wheels”: the city by Corrado Folinea

Discovering a new city, through scenarios that change with every glance, from the top of Mount Echia to the bottom of the metro, a "mandatory museum". The Passenger talks about Naples with Corrado Folinea, founder of Museo Apparente and Galleria Acappella

Satoshi and Vitalik: the origins of blockchain, “trust” technology

Disruptive, fascinating, controversial: blockchain is one of the most talked-about  technologies of recent years, from cryptocurrencies to the web3. Two different but revolutionary leaders have ushereda new era: the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto with Bitcoin and Vitalik Buterin, the wunderkind who invented Ethereum

How we got to the EU duties on Chinese-made electric cars

The European Union voted in favour of customs duties on Chinese electric cars. The measure aims to protect the car industry in Europe, but there is a risk of a trade war with Beijing looming, on which not all EU countries agree. Here's what can happen now

The Top 10 airports and new records in air traffic in Italy

In 2023, Italian airports reached a historic record, nearing 200 million passengers. The full return to pre-Covid levels has been completed with the excellent performance of the international segment and a positive trend confirmed in the first eight months of 2024

Amsterdam, feeling that “village vibes” with Ceriani Szostak

An amazing trip through streets and canals with Gilberto Ceriani and Ania Szostak, a creative duo which based its design studio in the Dutch capital. Discover a global yet man-sized city, disclosing charming places for residents, workers and visitors where everything runs around two wheels…

Green hydrogen: these are the major plants and projects to produce it in Europe

Green hydrogen promises to decarbonise the energy system, but between EU targets and real production capacity there is the need to build the new plants. Let's see the biggest to date or under construction in Europe

‘Undertourism’: here are 5 alternative destinations to overcrowded travel locations

 Everyone knows the places overwhelmed by overtourism. Let's get away from tautologies and explore the most underrated places for a holiday, away from ‘crazy crowds’.

The man who realized utopia: Sam Altman and the Artificial Intelligence for all

It seemed like a fantasy, but now it is reality: machines that mimic the faculties of the human mind have arrived and are here to stay. Sam Altman has made Artificial Intelligence available to everyone, thanks to OpenAI. His creature, ChatGPT, poses questions to humans, which “Pioneers of the future” will tackle with the help of a neuroscientist and a totally unexpected guest.

To tax or not to tax? The Hamletic doubt on tolls that embarrasses New York

Approved after years of work and studies in December, Manhattan's congestion charge was to be the first ever implemented in the entire United States. It was scheduled to start on 30 June, but the toll to moderate traffic was postponed to an indefinite date a few days earlier: the Big Apple continues to hesitate without making a decision. Here are the issues that have caused a stalemate

The top 10 busiest airports and the new post-pandemic world map

There is little left to close the gap in passenger and cargo traffic globally after the pandemic shock. The real driver of the recovery is international travel, with Asia and the Middle East becoming increasingly popular, while American leadership remains strong

In the City that changes but remains Eternal: in Rome with Mint List

A city «slow in its global vision» but that «moves a lot in the daily»: it is Rome, in the story of Maria Azzurra Rossi, co-founder of Mint List, an advertising and communication agency. Here the transformations of mobility and urbanism have returned new life and interest to neighborhoods and squares, where the stories of millions of citizens, tourists and non-residents weave together

Sustainable, courageous and efficient: mobility in 4 world-leading cities

Tianjin, Paris, Bogota and Jakarta have in recent years won the Sustainable Transport Award, the global competition that each year selects the city with the best projects for renewing mobility in a more sustainable and safe direction. Let's take a look at the results

How to invent a new era of humanity: Federico Faggin and the microprocessor

A small object from which everything started, a few millimetres of technology that 50 years ago made computing available to the general public: it is the microprocessor and its inventor is Federico Faggin. An idea that revolutionised forever the way of living, working and connecting for billions of people on the planet. For Pioneers of the future we talk to the Italian engineer, now engaged in a tireless activity of dissemination

Safety on board: the best practices from 3 countries on the right track

The fatal accident bulletin remains too high in relation to the WHO targets: reducing the number of fatalities by half by 2030. In a world travelling at different speeds on the subject, some countries offer effective models for improving road safety. Here are the cases of Denmark, Japan and Vietnam

“Milan, the best is yet to come”: around the city with Studiopepe

The second season of The Passenger, Infra Journal web series, is here and with a new format: “Inside The City”, to meet different protagonists in different Italian cities and discover each time new ways to live, work and move around. The first episode is dedicated to Milan, through the eyes of Arianna Lelli Mami and Chiara Di Pinto, founders of Studiopepe, an architecture and design studio

An ambition beyond the stars: the billionaires’ race to conquer space

Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are the protagonists of a challenge never seen before in human history, between satellite launches and orbital flight. The world arising from the space economy will depend on them too: here are the tycoons of the planet with space interests, among successes, aspirations and few too many extravagances

SAF, what's behind a green acronym

The Net-Zero 2050 goal in aviation depends largely on the adoption of sustainable fuels, but to date only 1% of the necessary infrastructure is ready. After the first 100% SAF commercial flight between London and NY, we take stock of the actual state of play to make this change possible

A young space leader, from Sicily to Mars: Chiara Cocchiara’s challenge

A brilliant student who overturned all preconceptions and, starting from the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, established herself in the world as a pioneer of space and the emerging space economy: the story, ambitions and projects of Chiara Cocchiara, an award-winning aerospace engineer with a penchant for the red planet

What airports will look like in 2050: the 5 megatrends of the future

Open, connected and ‘green’: airports around the world aim to facilitate travellers' access in a personalised, contactless and efficient way. Here are the five trends that will drive change as the world races towards 19 billion passengers per year

Electric cars: 3 innovative ideas for a faster recharge

Recharging times still are a critical issue in a travel experience by electric car. Three possible solutions are being studied to improve the EV-cars performance and to boost the spread of a more sustainable mobility: dynamic wireless charging, battery swapping and solid-state batteries

The Passenger #08 - Ambrogio Beccaria, playing with nature

An extraordinary relation with nature, lived going through the oceans: sailor Ambrogio Beccaria tells his love for sailing, which bloomed since a very early age, along his passions and questions which follow him on the boat, crossing the seas of the globe, in solitary

Hedy Lamarr, the fleeing diva who invented Wi-Fi

Hedwig Maria Eva Kiesler, long known only as an actress, decided to help humanity defeat Nazism with her studies in the field of telecommunications. Together with musician George Antheil, she invented a remote communication system for torpedoes, which today is considered as the basic foundation of modern wireless Internet connection technologies

The Passenger #07 - Vanessa Benelli Mosell on the wings of music

A pianist and conductor: travelling for Vanessa Benelli Mosell is an inseparable dimension from her natural talent for music, which from an early age led her to play all over the world

Desalination, pros and cons of the last frontier in the water crisis

Is it really so easy to use sea water to meet the water needs of entire cities and nations? What are the quality, energy costs, advantages and disadvantages? Let us take a closer look at a solution already widely used in some of the world's arid countries

Green finance and the fight against emissions: Mundys' commitment to sustainability

The group is the corporate leader of the World Economic Forum's initiative to identify new financing instruments for the ecological transition of the airport sector. Target to reduce CO₂ emissions by 50 per cent through SBTi assessment confirmed. And the interactive Data Art work ‘Moving Data’ lands at Rome Fiumicino

The 5 key actions to change the transports in a sustainable way

Changing technology or energy sources is not the only step to transform a sector that produces 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Efficient mobility services, more inclusive urban planning and barrier-free infrastructure are needed

Creating new worlds: Nolan Bushnell, Atari and the invention of video games

A former student of Electronic Engineering, assistant manager at an amusement park, became a serial entrepreneur and founded a revolutionary brand: Atari. Following the Pong’s success, Nolan Bushnell was the perfect conjunction ring of the History, which changed entertainment and lifestyle, developing out of nowhere a billionaire industry, such as video games

On the road: 5 sustainable destinations for the modern tourist

From Japan to Peru, via the Mediterranean, here are some ideas for summer 2023 that combine beauty, culture and the travel experience with environmental protection and the drive for innovation

CityZ, with IoT parking the free spot is on the app

The idea of a start-up from Turin: ultra-thin, connected sensors that monitor the occupancy status of car parking spaces, for a service integrated with any MaaS system and navigation app that lets you know in real time where to find an available parking space

The Passenger #06 - Chiara Luzzana and The Sound of City

Diving into a city, to hear its breath and discover its deep sound. Chiara Luzzana is a music composer for many brands and she came up with the project called The Sound of City: finding the soundtrack for every city, from its environmental noises

Living without cars? Here are the projects for rethinking cities

How to imagine life in the neighbourhoods and streets, abandoning the car-centred perspective? Some urban projects and initiatives around the world are trying to imagine this

Airport snack ‘on its way’: here comes Ottobot, the robot delivery

Programmed to navigate in crowded environments such as car parks and airports, Ottobot is Ottonomy.IO's autonomous retail delivery vehicle already present in Europe and North America. The start-up selected for the Aeroporti di Roma Innovation Hub comes from the United States and is the new story for Infra Journal's 'Rocket' column

The revolution in couple: Mr and Mrs Benz make up the automobile

Scientific ambition, adventure and passion describe the life of Karl e Bertha Benz, spouses who invented the first automobile and the journey by car. A lesson to still be remembered, written at the dawn of a new industry and a new mobility, more than 130 years ago

The robotaxi goes on the road and the competition is open

The robot taxi is almost a reality: Google, Amazon, Baidu and other companies are developing autonomous vehicles in several cities around the world

The Passenger #05 - Eva Geraldine Fontanelli, the good impact of traveling

Being a consciuous traveler means having a positive impact on the planet and the people we meet, according to Eva Geraldine Fontanelli. As a Ceo, consultant, stylist and fashion editor she is focused on projects joining fashion and sustainability. Infra The Mundys Journal has met her for the fifth episode by The Passenger

People-friendly mobility: the cities that really believe in it

Public transport, pedestrian areas, soft mobility and charging stations are just a few strategies to improve the quality of urban mobility. Let's see how the five cities at the top of the global sustainability challenge do it

Mundys, born to be a global leader in sustainable integrated mobility service

The Deputy Chairman of Mundys, Alessandro Benetton: “We are embarking on a new chapter in our business journey, joined by the people who have accepted this challenge.” The Chairman, Giampiero Massolo: “We want to serve the communities in which we operate, creating competitiveness and jobs. Whilst our head and heart will always be in Italy, international expansion is our goal.”

The story of WhatsApp: from failure to success of an idea

Jan Koum and Brian Acton are WhatsApp’s co-founders, the most used instant messaging app in the world. Remaining faithful to their ideas, at the height of a time shaped by advancements in digital technology, in 2009 they started developing the app that later was acquired by Facebook itself for 19 billion dollars, five years later an interview gone wrong

Lost no more thanks to baggage biometrics: the BagsID idea

Artificial intelligence applied to handling: the idea of the BagsID start-up, selected for ADR's Innovation Hub, was created out of a misadventure of its founder, Marlon van der Meer. We tell the story on Rockets, Infra Journal's column dedicated to innovative ideas

Algorithms for a more efficient and safer airport with Assaia

Intelligence and computer vision software allow aircraft turnaround to be optimised, reducing waste of resources and time, ultimately ensuring better passenger service. Assaia participates in the Aeroporti di Roma Innovation Hub and is a ‘Rocket’ story

The best cities for those wishing to expatriate, according to expatriates

Climate, public transport, mobility infrastructure, cost of living and much more: the world's largest expat community has conducted a survey of almost 12,000 expats on the best cities to live and work in abroad, creating a ranking of 50. Top-down, here are the ones that passed the test with flying colours

Littering? It’s up to Pixies, the robot that cleans smart cities

The first instalment of Infra Journal's 'Rocket' column features Pixies, the AI-powered robot that collects waste, recycles and recharges at a solar-powered smart bench. Andrea Saliola and Pier Paolo Ceccaranelli’s start-up participates in the Aeroporti di Roma Innovation Hub programme

“Changing mobility is no more an option and the key is data”

“We need to transform traffic from scratch to reach the emissions goals set by the EU Green Deal”, says Markus Schlitt, CEO at Yunex Traffic, a global leader in Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS). The task is ambitious, but it becomes feasible if you know where to start…

Utopia or the next revolution? The shape of the smart cities of the future

A line in the desert or hexagonal modules installed on oceans: here are the revolutionary projects of Neom, Oceanix City and other almost utopian smart cities

Italy's first vertiport deployed at Fiumicino Airport

Aeroporti di Roma (ADR), Atlantia, UrbanV, and the pioneer of urban air mobility (UAM), Volocopter, have successfully completed the first crewed eVTOL test flights in Italian airspace. It's the first time such an event ever happened in the Italian air space

Human beings can fly, according to these daring inventors

Taking off from the ground, soaring independently, covering kilometres of distance and overcoming any obstacle like a bird: the dream of flying has fascinated man since the dawn of time, but now, after a century of continuous technological innovation, it seems to be within reach. Also in “green” energy format

The Passenger #04 - Traveling as a continuous transformation: the perspective of Eric Battle Durany

The Passenger travels to Barcelona, Spain, to meet Enric Batlle Durany, a co-founder of the architecture, landscape and urban planning studio Batlleiroig. He has been working for over forty years on merging city and landscape together, in an uninterrupted journey between architectural constructions and nature

The 'ecomodernist' perspective on the environmental issue

Technological innovation and economic growth can coexist alongside the ecological transition, accompanying and indeed supporting it, under the banner of a renewed humanism. Michael Shellenberger presents his divergent theory from traditional environmentalism in his book 'The Apocalypse Can Wait'

Infrastructure at risk in the Arctic due to climate change

Global warming is causing the land in the Arctic region, which is permanently frozen (permafrost), to thaw. Soil disruption causes immediate damage to human works, a major impact on existing ecosystems and the release of new carbon into the atmosphere

From cargo to aerotaxis, eVTOLs are ready to take to the skies

At the dawn of Urban air mobility (UAM) there are already hundreds of ongoing projects of electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft worldwide, but some are closer to the finish line. Here is a selection of four of the most promising ones

Utopia comes true: the 5 most advanced flying cars

Innovative companies, start-ups and researchers are pooling resources, energy and expertise to create electric hypercars, which can also function as flying vehicles. From scale models to already approved ones, here are five state-of-the-art projects

Revolutionary roads: Ecopeatge, an eco-tolling system for Valencia

The Spanish city is testing an urban road usage and pollution charge, based on satellite and cloud technology provided by Abertis Mobility Services: here's how it would work, once implemented

Ideas for an unusual holiday: 5 'tech & green' places to discover

From the Mediterranean to Alaska, from the Far East to the Atlantic: some tourist destinations can boast extraordinary environmental and innovative resources. These are the keys to the resilience and sustainability of the sector in the post-pandemic period, globally. So, together let's depart again

Self-driving buses and shuttles: the 5 most advanced cities in Italy

From Turin to Bari, from Merano to the MaaS projects in Rome and Milan: cities in Italy are also moving toward introducing modern, flexible and sustainable self-driving public transportation services. Here are the experiments at the cutting-edge

A direct flight from continental Europe to Australia: a historical first

Flying directly from continental Europe to Australia is today finally a reality. Innovations and agreements have brought us to this historic day for aviation. Such news implies plenty of strategic and economic advantages, both for countries and travellers

The Passenger #03 - Carol Choi, that line between travel and cuisine

In the third episode of the video series, Carol Choi, a new yorker chef who moved to Piedmont, talks about the relationship between traveling and cooking. Travel, indeed, cannot be uninfluential on cuisine

Hyperloop, ultra-speed in an open source idea

The new frontier of innovation in ground transportation is Hyperloop, the "train of the future" conceived by Elon Musk. It will allow travel at 1,200 km/h in a depressurised tube through magnetic levitation. But the technological challenge is still open

A laboratory for sustainability in the airport of tomorrow

Reforesting is a part of a wider strategy in absorbing CO₂ at Aéroports de la Côte d'Azur. The group was certified Airport Carbon Accreditation level 4+ and has a plan to become a non-emissive airport platform in Nice, Cannes and Saint Tropez

The Passenger #02 - Travel and music according to Andrea Manzoni

“Travel is the key allowing me to contaminate my approach to the composition and creation of music.” So says Andrea Manzoni, an Italian pianist, composer and producer who lives in Paris

The “hunger” for minerals: the price of sustainability

An electric car requires six times more minerals than a conventional one. Global demand for certain raw materials, such as lithium, copper and other metals and minerals, grows steadily as the world struggles to achieve sustainability goals

How to cut gas emissions from transportation by 90% in the EU

The new European Urban Mobility Framework addresses mobility issues in 424 EU cities, as one of the key updates to Trans-European Transport Network (Ten-T), approved by the EU Commission. This whole package of actions, amendments and recommendations has the potential to kick off wide improvements for mobility among the member states

Satellite internet: the new space race

2022 will be a year of decisive importance for measuring the ambitions of the principal private companies aiming to colonise orbits around Earth in space in a new way

Managing traffic: congestion charge as an evolving option

The urban traffic demand was affected by lockdowns worldwide, but congestion charge as a remedy was all the same maintained, reinforced and is even ready to be newly implemented among some of the biggest cities

Beyond the imagination: the biorobotic challenge of the plantoids is here

These innovative “robotic plants” are bio-inspired automas that mimic the propagation of roots in the soil. Their creator is an Italian, Barbara Mazzolai, and her vision offers a glimpse of a variety of potential applications in various disciplines

A ranking of the world’s smartest cities

Digital services for citizens, e-governance, smart management of resources and more: a Singapore consulting firm has analysed 140 cities and come up with a ranking. Presenting the world’s four most digitally advanced cities

The Passenger #01 A conversation with Michele Rossi

In the first episode of the video series dedicated to travel and mobility, the architect and co-founder of Park Associati talks to us about his idea of the city of the future

The tunnel that links Britain to Europe

The fascinating story of the Channel Tunnel, the maxi-infrastructure that revolutionised travel and communication, cancelling centuries of conflict and political tension

Being relevant in a constantly moving world

Infra Journal is born and it aims to be a magazine dedicated to all specialized operators who work within the mobility ecosystem

Sky is (not) the limit

From SpaceX to Blue Origin, more and more private companies invest and believe in space as a journey but also as an achievement. What will its future implications and limitations be?

Transports, the dawn of the sustainable Era

The pandemic offered us a chance to rethink our mobility habits with an eye on the Planet. Here is how cities like Milan, Paris and London are responding to this need for change