One-way traffic, totems and new trekking card rates: how the Cinque Terre deal with the “red sticker” days

One-way traffic for time slots, maintenance of the trail network, information totems, but also revision of the trekking card fee. These are some of the measures that the Cinque Terre National Park decided to adopt to better manage the “red dot” days typical of holiday weekends. All design solutions made possible thanks to the contribution of the company Mic Hub which at the beginning of 2024 presented a study on mobility and accessibility to stakeholders and institutions.

In detail, the Park will activate a series of extraordinary measures, strengthening coordination with staff, volunteers and those responsible for information and security control, as well as monitoring the threshold beyond which anthropic pressure can represent a threat: for biodiversity, for the heritage of dry stone works and for the safety of the visitors themselves. Visitors for whom the objective is to ensure a pleasant experience of immersion in the landscape, at the pace of the walk, without waiting in queues on the path. “The actions to contain and control flows on the Park’s paths arise from the dual need to guarantee protection of the ecological heritage and safety of guests – said the President of the Park Donatella Bianchi – We need to protect the territory and consequently also the visit experience of the walker, who is often disappointed in his expectations precisely because of the crowds”.

Safety, alongside the protection of the naturalistic and landscape heritage of the Cinque Terre, remains on the agenda for the Park Authority. This is guaranteed primarily by extraordinary interventions maintenance of the infrastructure of the trail network, but also come on controls on suitable clothing and footwear, at the entrance gates of the Verde Azzurro path, which becomes a destination for inexperienced walkers during long weekends and holidays.

This is why based on the pressure forecasts on the busiest days, in particular on SVA path Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia will be reintroduced “One Way” by time slots. Only on days when a peak tourist flow is expected (only 16 days a year according to the MIC HUB study) will the Trekking card rate has been revised to encourage the use of the trail network on other low-crowd days. Furthermore, signs will be placed at the main entrances to the paths digital totems with real-time information or any alert messages. Among the management measures resulting from the study and introduced by the Park for the management of sustainable tourism on peak days, also a new wayfinding: it involves the design and placement of the new signs for the orientation of Park users. The objective is to have a new unitary reference signage, aimed at easy and immediate reading of the information, aimed not only at representing the condition of the existing signs, but above all at knowing the territory.

For the two-year period 2024-2025 the Park has also designed a digital piano in order to digitize some vital procedures for the effective management of the Park and its correct use as well as integrate the data to build a unified vision that makes flow management more effective and improves the quality and timeliness of information. These include a mobility portal which will collect all the useful information on the one hand for the visitor to better plan their experience at the Park and on the other for the Park itself, to carry out any interventions regarding mobility. Furthermore, an integrated dashboard will be created, i.e. an App that will allow the user to have real-time information on mobility, climate, natural heritage and hydrogeological risk areas.