Intermodality: The Path to Sustainable Mobility
An article by Francesca Romano, Sea Milan Airports, published in the white paper “The Mobility Revolution”.
SEA Milano Airports
SEA is the company that manages Milan Linate and Milan Malpensa airports. It ranks among the top 10 airport operators in Europe in terms of cargo and passenger traffic, second in Italy for number of passengers, and first for cargo volume. Linate and Malpensa represent two essential infrastructures for northern Italy’s connectivity and for the region’s economic and tourism development.
SEA is responsible for the management, development, and enhancement of Milan’s airports, offering high-quality services to passengers, airlines, logistics operators, and commercial partners. Its goal is to ensure an efficient, safe, and innovative airport service. SEA’s mission is to drive growth along a sustainable path, broadly shared and respectful of all stakeholders.
In a global context increasingly focused on ecological transition, sustainable mobility has become a strategic priority for cities, regions, and transport operators. In this scenario, intermodality emerges as one of the main tools for making travel more efficient, accessible, and low-emission. SEA now plays a key role in the transformation of urban and regional mobility, contributing decisively to the development of a sustainable, inclusive, and intermodal ecosystem.
Intermodality: an Ecosystem of Connections
Intermodality means the smooth integration of different transport modes—rail, road, air, metro, cycling, and pedes trian—into a connected and intelligent system that offers a seamless and intuitive travel experience. Intermodality is not just about infrastructure: it also involves coordination among stakeholders, interoperable technologies, and a shared vision focused on people’s needs.
SEA has progressively built a cooperative ecosystem of actors, establishing working groups to strengthen strategic partnerships aimed at developing shared solutions for a more efficient and environmentally conscious mobility system.
Airports: Strategic Hubs for Sustainable Mobility
In this integrated ecosystem, airports play a central role. They are no longer just gateways to air travel, but intermodal hubs capable of efficiently connecting air, rail, road, and urban transport. Often located in strategic areas between major cities and outlying territories, airports can act as logistics and service platforms, facilitating sustainable, fast, and coordinated travel.
Investing in airport intermodality means:
- Promoting direct rail and metro links to airports;
- Encouraging the development of airport connections via
shared and collective transport services (intercity buses,
shuttles, car sharing); - Providing services and infrastructure to support the use of
low-impact transport such as shared electric vehicles,
micro-mobility, and soft mobility; - Integrating digital solutions for smart flow management
and travel planning.
In this way, airports become catalysts for sustainable mobility, promoting the shift from private cars to more efficient and greener forms of transport.
A Cooperative and Local Model
Bringing about this transformation requires alliances among various public and private stakeholders: airport operators, railway companies, urban transport providers, local governments, and digital platforms. A systemic vision is needed, where every actor contributes to building an intermodal ecosystem that is accessible, resilient, and inclusive.
Airports, when embedded in such a network, can act as local hubs for communities and international gateways for regions. Connecting them efficiently to urban centers, industrial areas, and tourist destinations promotes economic, social, and environmental development.
Intermodality and Decarbonization
Promoting multimodal connections between airports and other collective transport options directly contributes to decarbonizing the mobility sector, which today accounts for a significant share of CO2 emissions. Replacing private car use with collective transport – especially on home-to-airport routes – can concretely reduce the environmental impact of travel.
The decarbonization of the airport system is one of SEA Group’s strategic priorities, aligned with European and international directives. This objective translates into concrete actions: investment in sustainable technologies, incentives for public transport use, digitization of services, and a long-term governance approach.
Citizens at the Heart of the New Mobility Model
The true innovation of intermodal mobility lies in putting citizens at the center, simplifying their travel experience. A system that integrates public, private, and alternative transport allows everyone to choose the most suitable means based on personal needs, timing, and values, encouraging more sustainable behaviors.
From this perspective, airports can become reference points for everyday mobility—not only for long-distance travel but also as local hubs serving communities and commuters.
Airports at the Center of Future Mobility
Today, intermodality is a key lever for building a sustainable, accessible, and intelligent mobility system. In this scenario, airports play a crucial role: not just as transport infrastructures, but as integrated hubs, engines of regional cooperation, and enablers of the ecological transition.
With its strategic approach to intermodality, SEA shows that it is possible to build a sustainable mobility model based on cooperation, innovation, and citizen centrality. Malpensa and Linate are not just two airports – they are mobility laboratories of the future, capable of connecting territories, people, and opportunities in a smart and responsible way.
In an era where sustainability is no longer an option but a necessity, SEA offers a concrete and replicable vision: an intermodal mobility system where every actor has a role and every citizen has access.
