Financial Distress in Italian Public Transports: General Predictors and Feaures of Emerging Issues

For a long time, the constant injections of public funds avoided the risk of insolvency and bankruptcy of Italian public transport companies. Nowadays, however, things have changed and it is no longer possible, especially in the light of the European Union’s prohibition to provide state aid, to keep on providing unconditional funding. Some recent cases of bankruptcy in this sector testify unequivocally the existence of areas of suffering, making the analysis of the financial conditions of the Italian local public transport companies urgent in order to verify their ability to meet their short and long term financial commitments. The financial difficulties of public transport companies are the effect of the contrast in place between the central government - that in times of crisis imposed a performance funding logic -, and the local governments, which resist in adopting such logic defending the sociality of the service. This chapter aims at showing, thanks to some empirical evidences, that such resistance reached a critical phase that is leading the whole Italian local public transport sector to a state of financial distress.