ABSTRACT

The growing demand for public and sustainable transport in heavily urbanised areas requires the construction of an increasing number of underground infrastructures. In Italian cities, the use of collective transport is still not fully developed: for example, in Roma public transport covers less than 30% of motorised mobility, compared to 67.7% in Barcelona, 63.3% in Paris, and 47.7% in London. The many constraints and technical challenges associated to the construction of underground infrastructures often lead to high costs and long completion times. This is particularly true in Italy, where many towns are characterised by a high density of population, significant archaeological heritage, and the presence of masonry structures of historical and monumental value, which are particularly sensitive to subsidence induced by excavation. It is therefore often necessary to adopt complex control systems of the excavation process in order to limit the deformations, to devise intense monitoring schemes, and, where necessary, to implement techniques for the protection of the structures affected by the excavation, and these activities result in larger construction costs.