THE "PUBLIC" IN LOCAL PUBLIC TRANSPORT: FROM USERS BY NECESSITY TO CUSTOMER BY CHOICE

The local public transport industry is undergoing a period of change. It is moving away from the logic of a public service with a simple social interest, towards an approach of a business activity aimed at satisfying the demands of a specific market, that of public transport. A phenomenon of such a scale is the result of an intricate series of causes. Generally speaking, the transformations in the technological and economic conditions of the production and supply of public services have played a direct role in the introduction to the local public transport sector of both the commercial and industrial mentality and approach. These transformations have also led to a radical change in the legal form of activity regulation and management. The latter is particularly applicable to Italy, where the whole framework of local public transport regulations has changed in a remarkably brief period of time, thus putting a definitive end to all types of monopolies while simultaneously introducing regulated competition, a process expected to be completed by late 2003.