Sustainable mobility

Since 2022 the Scuola Normale Superiore has adopted and published the Home-Workplace Travel Plan (Piano Spostamenti Casa-Lavoro, PSCL) for the Pisa site, since 2025 also for the Florence site. The PSCL maps the position of the SNS buildings, situated mainly within the historic city centre and the limited-traffic areas, and carried out a survey of the travel habits of those who work at the SNS daily.

The PSCL thus identified a series of measures to promote more sustainable mobility choices within the SNS community:

• Training courses and awareness campaigns
• An agreement for concessions for regional train use
• Incentives to encourage the use of local public transport
• Improve parking facilities for bicycles in the internal spaces of the SNS sites (Pisa and Florence)
• Review of the regulations for parking arrangements at the San Silvestro Complex in Pisa
• Logistic and/or economic incentives for the use of sharing mobility vehicles, in particular in the area of the San Silvestro Complex in Pisa and among the Florence sites of the Scuola Normale
• Anti-theft security marking of bicycles
• A web platform to encourage carpooling within the SNS community.   

Since 2023 a work group has operated to support the SNS Mobility Manager. The group meets every two months, its goals are to implement actions consistent with the PSCL and to spread and consolidate an organisational culture attentive to sustainable mobility.  
 

Ongoing initiatives

1. Incentives for the use of public transport

Buses
Thanks to an agreement signed with Autolinee Toscane, the technical-administrative and the teaching and research staff of the Scuola Normale can benefit from a substantial reduction on the price of the annual ticket for public buses.  

Intercity trains and Frecce
In July 2023, the SNS signed up for the Trenitalia for Business programme tailored to universities, which offers concessions for business trips with Freccia and Intercity trains. The programme includes the Welfare Plus offer, which gives a 10% discount for private train trips for teaching staff, students and technical-administrative staff, including up to 6 other accompanying travellers. It is valid for tickets at the Basic, Economy and Super Economy rate and can be purchased with the Freccia Card. 

Through the SNS's Fondo Provvidenze (Concessions Fund), the non-managerial technical-administrative staff can obtain a reimbursement of up to 25% of the expenses incurred for travel by train and by private bus lines used to reach the workplace (reimbursement is subject to the applicant's ISEE [economic situation index] status).  

2. Cycling mobility

The bicycle racks in the internal spaces of the SNS are periodically cleared of abandoned bicycles so as to ensure the availability of parking spaces.
The service for the anti-theft security marking of private bicycles is available to the entire SNS community free of charge on the occasion of dedicated events.
Since the academic year 2023/24, twenty bicycles have been available free of charge to students residing in SNS colleges to allow them to move sustainably around the city. 

3. Awareness-raising events

BIKE TO WORK DAY @ SNS – “We want to ride our bicycles!”
Since 2023, the Scuola Normale has taken part in the “Bike to work day", organised in Italy by the FIAB (Federazione Italiana Ambiente e Bicicletta) (Italian Federation of the Environment and Cycling) and part of a Europe-wide campaign witnessing thousands of people going to work by bike.

In 2025 the event was organised in collaboration with four other academic and research institutions in Pisa: the University of Pisa, the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, the CNR of Pisa and the INFN of Pisa. Personnel and students from all the institutions involved cycled together through the streets of the city centre, to be welcomed by the authorities of the Municipality of Pisa in Piazza XX Settembre.

4. Clean “company” vehicles

The Scuola Normale has recently been equipped with an electric car available to the Logistics Services.