Pros and Cons of Liberalization of Rome's Local Public Transport Service

The research presented in this paper contributes to the ongoing debate on the public vs private ownership by re-examining the case of Rome’s local public transport (LPT) system. After having illustrated the main reasons that led Roman citizens to ask for a referendum, the research provides a brief historical overview of Rome’s LPT system and discusses the main stylized facts presented in the institutional literature surveyed. Finally, the summary statistics are built using publicly available data. The results of the analysis highlight how ATAC’s inefficiency is only partially endogenous, as the “imported” territorial inefficiency is not negligible. This issue deserves more attention as, even if liberalization might enter a new “golden age”, the existence of structural inefficiencies might reduce the margins needed to convince private providers to enter the market, at least in those production segments more related to public interests.