L’analisi, condotta su 15 città italiane, confronta il costo del biglietto corsa semplice delle rispettive aziende di TPL tenendo conto del potere d’acquisto locale, ovvero la capacità di un individuo di acquistare beni e servizi in relazione al costo della vita nella propria area di residenza. Attraverso l’Affordability Index, emerge come il prezzo nominale del biglietto corsa semplice non rifletta sempre il suo effettivo impatto economico sui cittadini.
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Methodology
The analysis is based on three key variables:
- Nominal price of single ride ticket in different Italian cities (2024 data).
- Local purchasing power, a measure that expresses how much of goods and services an individual can purchase with his or her income, taking into account the cost of living where he or she lives. Data were obtained from the Numbeo platform and normalized to an Italian scale, placing the national average index at 100, obtained by dividing the New York scale purchasing power by the Italian average of 90.4.
- Affordability Index of travel tickets, obtained by relating the single-ride ticket price to local purchasing power.
For each city, the percentage deviation between the Affordability Index of travel tickets and the one-way ticket price was also calculated, an indicator of how much the actual cost of the ticket deviates from its apparent value.
Basco&T Consulting elaboration on data Numbeo
Main Results
Naples: the most expensive price in relative terms
- Single ticket price:: €1,30
- Affordability Index price:: €1,55
- Variation:: +19,2%
Despite the ticket being among the least expensive, Naples has the highest percentage increase relative to purchasing power. This reflects a strong imbalance between prices and local economic capacity, making the ticket the most expensive proportionally among the cities analyzed.
Cities with the most expensive ticket in absolute value
In Bologna, the single-ride ticket price is 2.30 euros, which rises to 2.46 euros in actual terms, a 7% increase over the apparent value. In Milan, the 2.20 euro ticket actually weighs 2.43 euro, or 10.5% more than the face value. Treviso also shows a similar dynamic: the 2.00 euro ticket has an actual price of 2.22 euro, a deviation of 11.1%.
Cities in balance between price and purchasing power
In several Italian cities, the cost of a single ticket is substantially in line with residents' spending power. In Rome, the nominal price of 1.50 euros corresponds to an effective price of 1.51 euros (+0.7 percent), while in Trieste the nominal and effective values coincide (1.50 euros). Padua, on the other hand, has a slightly higher actual price than the nominal: the 1.70 euro ticket actually “weighs” 1.74 euro (+2.0%).
The most affordable cities in relative terms
Catania clearly stands out as the city where the single ticket is most affordable in relation to purchasing power. The nominal price of 1.40 euros translates into an actual price of only 1.06 euros, a reduction of 24.3%. Bergamo also offers an economic advantage: the 1.70 euro ticket has an effective price of 1.53 euro (-10%). Genoa also falls into this category with a 6 percent savings over the nominal price.
Conclusion
The analysis conducted shows that the price of an urban public transport ticket, when observed in isolation, does not return a complete measure of its economic impact on citizens.
Through integration with the local purchasing power index, we were able to calculate the actual ticket price for each city and its variation from the nominal price. This allows us to observe significant differences between territories, related not only to the cost of the service, but also to the socio-economic context in which it is provided.
Cases such as those of Catania and Naples illustrate well how, for the same nominal price, the impact on purchasing power can vary significantly. Similarly, cities with more expensive tickets in absolute value-such as Milan, Bologna or Treviso-can have different economic impacts depending on average income and local price levels.
This reading does not have the ambition to provide judgments of merit or solutions, but is simply intended to offer a useful comparative tool for understanding spatial dynamics in the economic use of urban public transportation.
