The ticket does not pay for everything

Every day, millions of people board buses, trams and metro trains after buying a ticket or travel pass. This is the most visible part of the cost of public transport: we pay to travel and might intuitively assume that this revenue finances the service.

In fact, fares cover only part of the resources needed to operate vehicles, pay staff and ensure maintenance and service continuity. Alongside ticket and pass revenue, the national government, Regions and local authorities contribute through transfers and their own resources.

This raises a question: who really finances public transport in Italy?

Where the money comes from

The system can be understood as a chain.

The national government provides a significant share of resources through the National Public Transport Fund. Regions receive this funding and may add resources of their own. Local public transport agencies and awarding authorities then plan services and regulate the financial relationship with the companies that operate buses, trams and metro systems. The ticket is therefore only one of the financial flows supporting the system.

The National Public Transport Fund

Its full name is the National Fund for the State’s financial contribution to the costs of local public transport, including rail. It was established from 2013 and covers Italy’s ordinary-statute Regions.

To follow the flow of money without mixing different periods, we use 2025 as the reference year. In that financial year, €5,345,754,000 was allocated under chapter 1315 of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport. After deducting €4.2 million for the Observatory’s operating costs, the decree distributes €5,341,554,000. It also refers to the permanent €1 million reduction introduced as a contribution to public-finance objectives.

But how does more than €5 billion allocated in Rome translate into a bus crossing a city?

From Rome to Lombardy

Under the final 2025 allocation, Lombardy received approximately €953.8 million.

This figure requires some explanation. Lombardy has a historical share of 17.36%, but in 2025 this percentage was applied to a €4.873 billion component of the Fund, producing approximately €845.9 million for the Region. Further resources were allocated using standard costs and other criteria, bringing Lombardy’s overall allocation to €953.8 million. It would therefore be inaccurate simply to say that Lombardy receives 17.36% of the entire Fund.

The national Fund also includes regional rail. The amount assigned to Lombardy consequently differs from the amount later transferred solely to local public transport agencies.

From the Region to public transport agencies

In May 2025, the Lombardy Region made an initial allocation of €665.95 million to local public transport agencies. Approximately €515.07 million came from the national Fund, while €150.87 million consisted of the Region’s own resources.

The agency covering the Metropolitan City of Milan, Monza and Brianza, Lodi and Pavia received approximately €437.48 million in this first allocation, more than 65% of the resources distributed to Lombardy’s agencies. Of this amount, approximately €337.78 million was covered by the national Fund and €99.70 million by the Region’s own resources.

An important detail concerns the €671 million figure often used by the Region: the May resolution allocated approximately €666 million to the agencies for 2025 and separately provided another €5 million for transport in mountain and low-demand areas in 2026.

And then we arrive in Milan

Moving further down the chain, the City of Milan’s 2025 financial statements show the main sources supporting the system.

Passengers are one source: in 2025 the City recorded €404.1 million in local public transport fare revenue. Public funding is another: in the same year, the regional contribution transferred to the City through the transport agency amounted to €270.8 million.

The total cost of the service considered in the 2025 statements was approximately €963 million. Fare revenue therefore covered 42.0%, while the regional contribution represented approximately 28.1%. A remaining share of approximately €288.1 million, or 29.9%, was covered through municipal resources and other revenue.

Comparing fares and the regional contribution alone, every euro from fare revenue was accompanied by approximately 67 cents of regional funding. This immediately shows why the system cannot be understood solely through the ticket price.

Milan also has a distinctive contractual model. The service contract between the City of Milan and ATM is a gross-cost contract: fare revenue belongs to the City, which pays ATM an annual fee for operating the service, calculated according to vehicle-kilometres supplied. The contract has been extended until 31 December 2026.

In other words, the money paid for an ATM ticket is not simply the revenue with which ATM pays for buses. It enters a broader system in which fare revenue and public resources are used by the public authority to finance the service set out in the contract.

So, who really pays?

The answer is: everyone, but in different ways.

Passengers contribute directly when they buy a ticket or pass. The national government finances the system through the Fund. Regions redistribute these resources and add their own funding. Agencies and local authorities channel the money to local services and, through service contracts, to the operators that provide transport.

The figures in this chain are not perfectly overlapping shares: Lombardy’s allocation also includes regional rail, while the resources assigned to agencies combine national and regional funding.

The price displayed on a ticket is therefore only the most visible part of a much larger financial mechanism. A ticket does not cover the full cost of a journey; it represents the share charged directly to the passenger. The rest is financed collectively because public transport is not merely a service for those on board, but an essential part of the infrastructure on which cities and territories depend.

Comparison with other cities

^* For Naples, the 90-minute integrated urban ticket was used because it is more comparable with the tickets offered in the other cities. ANM’s operator-only ticket costs €1.30 for buses and funiculars and €1.50 for the metro.

Methodological note. The percentage is calculated by dividing total ticket and pass revenue by the operating costs considered in the relevant source. The years, geographical scopes and accounting criteria are not perfectly consistent across cities, so the comparison should be treated as indicative. The single-ticket price is included as tariff information and is not used directly to calculate the percentage.