Abstract

The paper dwells on the current stance of the Local Public Transport in Italy ahead of a new drive aimed at opening the market for commuter and urban travelers. It looks at the bumpy and slow progress of the institutional framework while touching upon the main regulatory models to be found in Europe. Long-standing structural bottlenecks in this sector are exacerbated by huge differences in the infrastructure endowments and the level of service provision. The paper advocates for a mid-term strategy under which an investment upswing goes hand in hand with a set of consistent financial, regulatory and urban planning policies.