Martin Placek
Research expert covering transportation and electronics
Public transportation in Italy
Italian cities are famous worldwide for their architectural beauty, cultural richness, and exquisite cuisine, making them a magnet for foreign visitors every year. Tourists and people living in those cities will have to be transported from one point to another, and the public transit network will have the challenge to perform this massive job. After years of reporting public transit ridership of more than three billion passengers, the number of people traveling by urban public transport in Italy dropped drastically to 1.8 billion passengers in 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
From funiculars in the Alps to the vaporetti in Venice, the variety of public transit options in Italy is wide. Urban buses are, without a doubt, among the most used modes of transit. In 2020, there were more than 13,000 local buses in circulation in Italy. From the total urban bus fleet, only 607 were electric or hybrid, a considerably low ratio but still an improvement from previous years. Five years earlier, there were less than 200 electric buses running on Italian streets. The underground is also a popular way of transport in big Italian cities. There are only seven subway systems in Italy as of 2020, of which the Milan Metro was the longest, reaching more than 72 kilometers of tracks. In total, Italy has almost 200 kilometers of subway lines in operation.
Milan is the second largest city and the financial heart of Italy. In 2020, the Milanese public transit system transported 301 million passengers, a y-o-y decrease of almost 60 percent. The drop slightly affected the financials of the company ATM (Azienda Transporti Milanesi), which reported a decline of only 2.3 percent in revenues in 2020. The public company operating the municipal public transport of Milan hit back in 2021 with a revenue recovery above pre-pandemic levels, passing the one billion euros margin for the first time since 2015.
All roads lead to Rome… or Milan
Being the most populous and the capital city of Italy, Rome has the hard daily task of transporting millions. Before the pandemic hit, the public transit network in Rome transported around 900 million people yearly. ATAC (Azienda Tramvie e Autobus del Comune di Roma) is the company in charge of most of the local public transport in Rome, selling around 100 million tickets per year before the pandemic. In 2021, the number of tickets sold almost reached 50 million, a reduction of 49.5 percent compared to 2019.Milan is the second largest city and the financial heart of Italy. In 2020, the Milanese public transit system transported 301 million passengers, a y-o-y decrease of almost 60 percent. The drop slightly affected the financials of the company ATM (Azienda Transporti Milanesi), which reported a decline of only 2.3 percent in revenues in 2020. The public company operating the municipal public transport of Milan hit back in 2021 with a revenue recovery above pre-pandemic levels, passing the one billion euros margin for the first time since 2015.
Are Italian commuters satisfied?
In general, Italians are not 100 percent satisfied with urban public transit services. For instance, the level of satisfaction of commuters on the subway networks in Italy was 6.6 points out of ten in 2020. Other ways of public transit, like trams and urban buses, also reported similar satisfaction levels. The almost absence of integrated public policies to offer better services and tariffs is leading to problems in efficiency and productivity in the Italian urban public transport sector. A situation that, together with the pandemic, is causing a loss in the willingness of passengers to use more transit options. In 2020, only around a third of Italians stated that they wished to use public transportation more in the future.
