Ceris-Cnr, W.P. N°16/2000
The law 151 fixed the principles that the regions should follow for the exercise of the
legislation and administrative power concerning the LPT. Article 1 (comma 1) defines the
juridical description of the LPT services10 specifying that local transport services that are
exclusive competence of the Government (typically the railway service) are excluded from
this category, while comma 2 of the same article, specify that the regions delegate, to the
local bodies and their consortium, the execution of the administrative functions. Article 2
establishes that the planning functions of the regions have the purpose of creating a direct
correlation between “economical development, territorial order, and transport organization”
inside an integrated framework of modalities and infrastructure. Concerning the legislative
power, article 3 establishes that the Regions have the following responsibilities:
- define the territorial limits of the traffic zones11 based on criteria that take into account
the needs of the territory organization and the mobility;
- define the guidelines for the organization and services structure;
- fix the criteria for the elaboration of the “traffic zones plan” made by the local
authority, in order to guarantee coherence with the regional transport plan;
- promote inside each zone the creation of a consortium of the bodies for the exercise of
administrative functions related to the LPT;
- encourage the circulation and the use of public transport systems in the urban center;
- define the rules for participation in the Regional Integrated Transport Plan (PRIT);
- establish the sanctions to be applied to the traveller for irregular travelling documents.
It is worth mentioning that in reality the administrative definition of the traffic zones
has always prevailed and they have often been identified with the provincial territory. The
definition of functional zones, i.e., coherent with what is defined by the law, has often been
made only as informative support for the regional programming and planning. The situation
that was consequently created was a complete overlaying of territory of the Province, traffic
zone and consortium service area12; this situation could cause some problems where the
map of the institutional territory differs greatly from the daily transport functional zone13.
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These are the services normally used for transport of people and goods made continuously or periodically,
with defined itineraries, time, frequency and tariffs and non differentiated offer.
For traffic zone it is intended the “territorial zone inside which it is carried out an integrated public
transport service co-ordinated in relation to the mobility needs, with particular care to the work, school
and tourist needs.
The constitution of consortium among territorial authorities for the administration of the LPT services is
tied to the definition of traffic zones. But the article 3 does not identify the consortium with the zone area;
however this is what has become common practice.
In these contests, spill-over effects may occur that can create noticeable problems of services organisation
and public resources allocation. The most evident effect is due to the high presence of non resident users
in the peak hours, particularly in city centres that attract many visitors. This phenomenon obliges the
public transport companies to enlarge the service capacity in order to satisfy the request of resident tax

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