What the government has (not) done about local public transport
The wave of price increases will have a strong impact on the budgets of Local Public Transport (Tpl) companies, already tested by two years of the pandemic. Marco Foti's speech
The latest data from the AssoLombardia Study Center show an increase in gas prices, compared to last year's prices, of 647% and oil prices of 104%. Added to these increases are those of other raw materials.
The wave of price increases will have a strong impact on the budgets of Local Public Transport (Tpl) companies, already tested by two years of the pandemic.
To aggravate the normal management administration, Agens, Anav and Asstra, the Associations representing the Tpl companies, highlight the "inequality adopted in the last Law Decree between the different mobility solutions regarding the confirmation of the use of personal protective equipment. on board buses and trains. A decision that is inconsistent with the framework of generalized openings and with negative repercussions on the trend in traffic revenues as users tend to favor individual private transport ".
But that is not all. The study "The performance of local public transport companies – 2022", carried out by Asstra and the Intesa Sanpaolo Study and Research Center, reports a worrying picture of the Tpl sector in Italy which, in the pre-Covid scenario, had a system of companies with over 124,000 employees, 49,000 vehicles, 1.8 billion car-km traveled per year and more than 5.5 billion passengers transported (including the regional train sector) for a total turnover of approximately 12 billion euros.
With the spread of the pandemic, the habits inherent in the movement of citizens have changed radically. Audimob – ISFORT data showed, between 2019 and 2020, a 21% decrease in car travel and a 58% drop in public transport. Despite the health measures adopted, 2021 did not show a uniform recovery of mobility at pre-Covid levels and collective transport is still suffering, stopping in the first months of 2021 at a share of 6.1% of total journeys compared to at 10.6% in 2019.
In recent years, companies have suffered dizzying "collapses" in the numbers relating to passengers transported which, compared to 2019, recorded an average reduction of 42%. Trends which, according to a survey by the ASSTRA Research Department, are still decreasing for 2022 (-21%) and 2023 (-12%).
The losses suffered by the companies, according to the estimates of the ASSTRA Research Department, amount, both in 2020 and in 2021, to approximately 1.68 billion euros, while in 2022 the estimate is reduced to 1 billion euros.
Between missed traffic revenues, ceasing and emerging costs, full payment of the fees from the service contract without the application of the deductions and penalties for the reduction of mileage not made and refreshments by the Government the needs necessary for companies to achieve the managerial economic balance is approximately 2 billion euros in the period 2021 – 22.
This is because the institutional intervention allowed the complete coverage of the losses recorded in 2020 and the partial coverage in 2021, leaving part of 2021 and all of 2022 uncovered.
The analysis on the economic-financial performance, conducted by the Studies and Research Department of Intesa Sanpaolo in collaboration with Prometeia, for 2021 and 2022 indicates the "difficulties of a sector that was still affected by mobility restrictions, by a demand in partial recovery and the increase in energy costs and the generalized increase in prices ".
Unlike other sectors for which a regulatory system of cost adjustment is envisaged, the sphere of public transport companies confirms "a difficulty in transferring the price increases downstream" as "the possibility of acting on tariffs is discretionary and this implies inevitably, an erosion of the margins and profitability of the sector ".
This mix of critical issues, expected for 2022, "determines an inevitable and very critical erosion of margins and profitability of companies with an important impact on the economic and financial balance" and for which it is strictly necessary to intervene to protect a national strategic sector.
Ad maiora.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/smartcity/che-cosa-non-ha-fatto-il-governo-sul-trasporto-pubblico-locale/ on Sat, 25 Jun 2022 05:58:21 +0000.