Little competition, few tenders, poor services. The Antitrust survey on LPT, the second item of expenditure for the Regions after Healthcare, documents the backwardness of a sector that commits over 7 billion euros of state funds and generates almost 11 of revenues, with the sale of tickets which covers just 30% of the costs (also due to the plague of fare evasion). But it's right from here, albeit at the moment only 14,6% of urban journeys are made by public transporti, which can make a decisive contribution to developing sustainable mobility and reducing congestion, with benefits for the environment, health and quality of life.
A HARD CHARGE
In addition to the unsatisfactory performances, compared to the main European countries, emerge severe structural imbalances between cui: insufficient investment in infrastructure; obsolete rolling stock; considerable territorial differences, for which users of some Regions, especially central-southern ones, have access to fewer and worse quality services, without however paying lower prices.
Almost 70% of the sector's losses, considering publicly-owned companies, concern the Lazio Region. Which translated in a nutshell means that theAtac alone accounts for two thirds of the total losses of the sector. Even in large urban centers the fundamental right to mobility is not ensured uniformly: indeed, sometimes the offer is worse precisely in the areas frequented by users with lower incomes. In short, despite the significant disbursements of public money, there is no substantial equity in access to LPT services, nor have effective policies been undertaken to develop sustainable mobility.
One datum is particularly striking: in Italy the overall offer of LPT services is on average oversized compared to the effective demand, which however often remains unsatisfied. This apparent paradox, produced by the excess of services precisely where they are least needed, reveals serious shortcomings in the planning by the Regions and other local bodies.
Local public transport services are still mainly managed on the basis of exclusive contracts entrusted directly to investee companies by local authorities or, in the case of iron, to Trenitalia. Few races have been done, often badly.
The Antitrust investigation shows how – also in light of the best international practices – efficient management and quality services do not depend so much on the public or private ownership of the companies, but on the presence of mechanisms, such as those set in motion by tenders , which stimulate companies to behave in a virtuous way. Opening up the sector to competition could therefore make a significant contribution to solving the problems encountered, so as to ease the pressure on public spending but also guarantee a wider enjoyment of the right to mobility.
THE OBSTACLES TO BE REMOVED
In the Authority's opinion, two factors are at the origin of the lack of development of competition in the sector:
1) legislation that has hindered both competition "for" the market (i.e. the holding of tenders to entrust the management of services) and competition "in" the market (i.e. the offer of services by multiple operators on the same lines, which can generate more services and better quality without neglecting the protection of the weakest categories);
2) a set of elements which have discouraged the use of tenders, including, in particular, theabsence of mechanisms capable of conditioning the disbursement of public funds on the results obtained and conflicts of interest, in cases where the local authority is also the owner of the service provider.
THE NECESSARY REMEDIES
The Antitrust therefore deems it necessary, through the reform of the local public services under discussion in Parliament or in another way, a timely regulatory intervention, to favor a more competitive structure of the sector, suggesting four lines of intervention:
1) A "quality leap" is needed in the service planning phase, both in reorganizing the division of responsibilities between the State, Regions and local bodies, and in the merits of programming, which should be carried out at least at a regional if not supra-regional level and no longer on the basis of the historical, inadequate offer, but taking into account the real user needs; in other words, starting from the guidelines of the central State (to correct the inequalities), the administrations must ask themselves which is the best way (train, bus, non-scheduled services, call services, commercial services, possibly to be combined with taxes or reimbursements for the most disadvantaged categories) to satisfy the demand, in order to burden public expenditure as little as possible, while guaranteeing effective access to the use of public transport.
2) The use of tenders should be encouraged with mechanisms aimed at making administrations responsible, rewarding the most virtuous when allocating public funds and increasing the transparency of their work.
3) The races have to be well done and ensure broad participation (for example, it is useful to create independent companies that buy trains to lease them to operators and use appropriate tools to address employment implications). It is also necessary to intervene on the node of conflicts of interest, detaching the functions of the contracting station from the local dimension and attributing them to a single body at the level of the central State.
4) Competition must be developed "in" the market, not widespread also because it is considered - erroneously - a method that does not allow the pursuit of social objectives. The survey shows, however, that the almost total absence of competition has led to heavy pressure on public spending, without guaranteeing greater equity and better living conditions for citizens.
