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Costa Cruises willing to invest in making Savona operations greener

Costa Cruises willing to invest in making Savona operations greener

Costa Cruises and Savona are keen to make operations at the port's two cruise terminals - the original Palacrociere which celebrated its tenth anniversary last weekend with Costa Diadema's maiden visit and the new terminal  officially opened the same day - more environmentally-friendly going forward.

'Costa Cruises is willing to invest in the green development of Savona cruise terminals,' announced company ceo Michael Thamm.

With Costa eyeing further calls in Savona, the attention now is focussed on passenger connectivity to the terminal via road and rail and making it more green, the ceo highlighted.

Savona Port Authority president, Gialuigi Miazza says there plans put forward are supported by the city's mayor Federico Berruti, and include solutions such as underpasses to reduce traffic impact on Savona’s city centre, which is built around the port. 'We are at the very early stages of brainstorming, as Costa Cruises has just confiirme dit is willing to also invest in this project,' he told Seatrade Insider this week.

During peak homeport and transit operations, more than 150 buses and 1,000 private cars head to the cruise terminal, which putting pressure on city centre traffic flows. 'We are looking at bringing more passengers by train with the railway line situated 200mtr from the cruise terminal and connecting to the city's main station Parco Doria which is on the Genoa-Ventimiglia line and also connected to France. The track is managed by the port authority and used for commercial trains but only a few operate each week and it is under utilised currently,' said Miazza.

In addition, from mid-2015,  Parco Doria mainline station will be connected with the nearby Vado Ligure commercial port for use of freight goods.

'We are thinking of using this railway line to carry passengers and baggage direct to the cruise terminal on green transportation such as electric locomotives. They would park or arrive by bus in a designated area outside the crowded port and then hop on the train to the ship or vice versa. This will relieve traffic congestion in the city centre and also offer a better service to embarking and disembarking passengers,' said Miazza.

'This will also reduce emissions, providing the 'green credentials' requested by Costa, as well as speed up the operations at the terminal,' commented Miazza.

He added, the project still requires a lot of work and funding.