Transportation and telecommunications

Water transport

Water transport was the first important means of linking Italy with its Mediterranean trading partners, even though its only navigable internal water is the Po River. At the time of unification in the 19th century, the ports of Venice, Palermo, and Naples were of great significance, and the Italian merchant fleet was preeminent in the Mediterranean Sea. The 4,600 miles (7,400 km) of Italian coastline are punctuated by many ports, and a large majority of imports and exports arrive and leave the country by sea. The principal dry-cargo ports are Venice, Cagliari, Civitavecchia, Gioia Tauro, and Piombino, while those handling chiefly petroleum products are Genoa, Augusta, Trieste, Bari, and Savona. Naples and Livorno handle both types of cargo. Half of the commercial port traffic is concentrated on only one-tenth of the coastline. The industries of Piedmont and Lombardy make heavy demands on the maritime outlets, particularly Genoa, which is the most extensive and important Italian port but which has great difficulty expanding because of the mountains surrounding it.

Rail transport

The main period of railway construction was about the time of unification, from 1860 until 1873. The heavy costs involved in laying down the infrastructure caused the government to sell off its stake in 1865. By this time the networks serving Milan, Genoa, and Turin in the north were well-developed. These were followed by links through the Po valley to Venice; to Bari, along the Adriatic coast; down the Tyrrhenian coast, through Naples, to Reggio di Calabria; and from Rome to the Adriatic cities of Ancona and Pescara. The Sicilian and Sardinian networks also were built. A period of rationalization and modernization followed in 1905 when the network was renationalized; building of new rail lines continued throughout the 20th century. An exceptional feature was the early electrification of the lines, many of which ran through long tunnels and were ill-suited to steam power. This modernization was due to Italy’s early development of hydroelectricity.

Although the rail network is well distributed throughout the peninsula, there are important qualitative differences between its northern and southern components. The north enjoys more frequent services, faster trains, and more double track lines than the south. Compared with other European networks, the Italian trains carry little freight but many passengers, partly because the railways failed to keep pace with the rapid rate of industrialization after World War II, while the passenger lines were made inexpensive through government subsidies. Eighty percent of the rail network was controlled by the state via Ferrovie dello Stato (“State Railways”) before it was privatized in 1992.

The Italian railways are connected with the rest of Europe by a series of mountain routes, linking Turin with Fréjus in France, Milan with Switzerland via the Simplon Tunnel, Verona to Austria and Germany via the Brenner Pass, and Venice to eastern Europe via Tarvisio. In the late 20th century routes were expanded, extended, and modernized, including the addition of high-speed lines and computerized booking and freight control systems. The railway network extends some 10,000 miles (16,000 km).

Road transport

The Italian road network is subdivided into four administrative categories—express highways (autostrade) and national, provincial, and municipal roads (strade statali, strade provinciali, and strade comunali, respectively). Road construction in Italy flourished between 1955 and 1975. Between 1951 and 1980, surfaced roads, excluding highways and urban streets, increased by 72 percent to cover more than 183,000 miles (295,000 km). Automobile sales increased faster than in any other western European economy during this period. Much of this was due to mass production of cheap models by Fiat. Road construction in the south particularly benefited from funds released by the Southern Development Fund.

More spectacular than general road construction was the development of the highway system. This project was farmed out to concessionary companies and financed by tolls, releasing it from the slow state bureaucracy and explaining its rapid progress. By the 1980s the network extended over 3,700 miles (6,000 km), making it second in Europe (only West Germany’s was bigger). The main axis runs north-south from Chiasso on the Swiss border via Milan, Bologna, Florence, and Rome all the way south to Reggio di Calabria at the very tip of the peninsula. Another major route cuts southward from the Brenner Pass along the Adriatic coast to Bari and Taranto. A dense latticework of highways serves the north, linking Turin to Milan, Venice, and Trieste on an east-west axis and to Bologna and Genoa. Other east-west routes link Rome to Pescara across the Apennines and connect Naples to Bari. Commercial road transport has increased in recent years; Italy has one of the five largest trucking fleets in Europe.

Congestion is one of the main problems facing Italy’s urban streets. Many town centres are based on medieval street plans and are unable to cope with levels of traffic and pollution generated by a population with one of the highest rates of automobile ownership in western Europe. Several cities, including Rome and Milan, have introduced measures to reduce the number of cars entering the city centres at peak hours and promoted other modes of transport. In the 21st century some towns took these steps even further, embracing a trend that came to be known as the “Slow City” movement. By completely banning automobiles from historic city centres and promoting the use of local products, the dozens of towns that adhered to the “Slow City” philosophy sought to preserve their traditional character.

Air transport

Of the small proportion of freight passing through Italian airports, a majority of it is processed either at Malpensa Airport near Milan or at Leonardo da Vinci Airport (in Fiumicino) near Rome. These airports, nearly equally, also handle the bulk of passenger traffic, though Linate Airport in Milan and Marco Polo (Tessera) Airport in Venice carry a large number as well. Many of the other regional airports (including those at Turin, Genoa, Verona, Bologna, Rimini, Pisa, Naples, Brindisi, Palermo, Catania, and Cagliari) are used for domestic flights, except during the peak tourist season, when they may absorb some of the vacation traffic from other European destinations.

The most frenetic developments in air transport occurred in the 1960s, with a 10-fold increase in freight traffic and a sevenfold increase in passengers. At that time Alitalia, Italy’s national airline, became one of the largest in Europe. It remained viable by surviving the oil crisis of the 1970s, diversifying as a result of airline deregulation in the 1980s, and forming partnerships with foreign airlines in the 1990s and early 21st century. Alitalia filed for bankruptcy in 2008 and was purchased by an Italian investment group. Italy’s flagship carrier was merged with Air One, a domestic competitor, and years of restructuring led to a more competitive airline.

Telecommunications

Italy had put into use some 15 million broadband Internet connections, 22 million personal computers, and 20 million main telephone lines by the early 21st century. Roughly half of all Italians were regular Internet users, and cellular phones had achieved an astonishing level of penetration. Italy was one of the largest wireless markets in Europe, and, with more than 90 million active mobile phones in 2015, the number of cellular phones in Italy outstripped its population by more than half.