Mobility Infrastructure Supporting Tourism Economy in the South of Albania
Authors: Pasquale Francesco 
Published: October 2024

Due to its position at the border with Greece, which is also the merging point of two seas – Adriatic and Ionian - the region of Finiq embraces a long history of ancient cultures and consequently its heritage embodies a stunning variety of elements, both natural and anthropic. Thus, the trans-regional connection nowadays consists of national roads only, which collect the whole traffic of private cars and buses. The local subnetwork of roads suf- fers critical peaks on the coast during the summertime, while the villages of the countryside are still perceived as remote destinations and are increasingly underpopulated. At the state of art, the European blue corridor is already planned to cross the Ģirokastra inner valley of the region in the north-south direction (Fig1), and an airport is considered to be built in the flat area behind Saranda next to the Butrint Lake. These actions could respond to international connections but will not solve themselves the issue of local mobility in terms of sustainability and accessibility. How to increase the accessibility of the area, enhancing the development of tourism as well as the local economy, preserving the environmental qualities at the same time? This is the main research question in analyzing possible models of mobility from the scale of the international infrastructure framework to a small-mid size network of towns and villages. More specifically: how can digital mobility services enhance the multimodality, thus the sustainability and the accessibility of the whole area? Attractivity may be intended in sev- eral ways, as many as the possible business models in the tourism industry. Experiences such as the one on the southern coast of Spain show how over-spoiling local territories with mass tourism generated a post-boom heavier crisis (Fig2). Considering that, sharing a vision about the identity appears to be the key act of the process. The research compares possible mobility models according to different infrastructure systems, trying to predict their impact in terms of regional planning. The a-dimensional scale of information technology will be the crucial tool to challenge the global trend of digital services in mobility, enabling the services offered by the infrastructures in an augmented user experience. Considering the natural environmental con- ditions and the value of its heritage, the Finiq region can aim to become a virtuous model for slow instead of mass tourism. As the local communities and the economic lobbies negotiate a balance point where to agree, recognizing a common set of values on which to promote the area, the mobility infrastructures will enhance the shared vision by providing transportation accordingly. Given a variable scenario as a result of this process, mobility will anyway be an ecosystem of different networks and vectors to be linked and tuned together, in order to make them work in a more sustainable way and make them available to the users. Digital services such as an open data server with a dedicated app can realize the collection of all information not only regarding routes, tickets, rent, parking, etc...to provide a better user experience to citizens and tourists, but also useful parameters about air/water/soil pollution, noise or CO2 footprint of transportation to fine-tune the ecosystem of mobility during the time.