How is it better to travel in Italy? If you travel between large cities in the center-north, the high-speed train is better. To explore instead remote villages or rural areas, the car is (almost) mandatory and is the most popular vehicle when working or pleasure travel. To reach the islands or cover long distances, the plane (the safest) competes with ferries, while in the city it is better to rely on public transport as buses, when they are efficient. Let’s see an overview of Italian transport and what decisions it is better to make if you have to travel.
What is the best means of transport to travel to Italy
Italy is an extraordinarily rich country of history, art and landscapes, capable of attracting millions of tourists every year. But how easy is it to move within the Belpaese? And what is the best way to move from one city to another?
One of the strong points of Italian transport is undoubtedly the high-speed railway network that allows you to move quickly, and with a low environmental impact, among the central stations of some of the most important cities in the center-north, such as Milan, Bologna, Florence, Rome and Naples with frequency, speed and comfort and not particularly high costs, if you book in advance.
In the rest of the country, the situation is much more heterogeneous: Italy is below the European average for density of the railway network, or for kilometers of railway for every 1,000 km² of territory. According to Eurostat data, countries such as Germany, Austria and even Czech Republic boast a more dense and branched network. In addition, many regional and secondary sections are slow, subject to delays and not always well maintained. And some internal areas of the Apennines or Southern Italy are not very served or completely isolated.
For those who want to explore rural, mountain or coastal areas outside the main urban centers, the car therefore often remains the most practical solution, if not the only one. In fact, it allows maximum freedom in moving and can prove to be the cheapest solution for those traveling in small groups or in the family. However, traveling by car in Italy costs a lot: both in terms of time (due to traffic and sometimes difficult and cheap parking spaces: the cost of fuels is among the highest in Europe, the motorway tolls are high (with the exception of the Brenner and few other sections) and the parking lots in historic centers are often expensive.
In recent years, companies like Flixbus have however revolutionized interurban transport by rubber. The long -distance sections by bus are an economic solution to travel between cities, especially for students and young people. Low prices, many sections also secondary, the possibility of traveling at night are among the advantages of this means of transport, which are however contracted long times, variable comfort, unpredictable road traffic. In regions such as Basilicata, Molise or part of Calabria, long -distance buses are almost the only alternative to private transport.
For fastest radius movements, Italy, despite the relatively small dimensions, instead boasts over 40 operational airports. At European level, in 2024 Fiumicino was found to be the ninth airport for the number of passengers transported: a positive result, which confirms the centrality of Italy in European air traffic.
However, the distribution of airports in the area is not uniform: many minor regions have little used airports. Furthermore, airport accessibility is not always optimal: shuttle bus often serve or long taxi races to reach the city center. Choosing the plane then also means having to realize checks and expectations, movements from/for airports and high emissions.
An alternative to reach the islands (especially if you travel with the car in tow) is made up of ferries. The maritime transport of passengers is in fact crucial for some areas, although often underestimated in national planning. According to the Eurostat report on the Maritime Statistics of 2023, the port of Messina is the busiest in Europe, with 11.3 million passengers transported. In second place is another Italian port: Reggio Calabria (including Villa San Giovanni), with 11.1 million passengers. These numbers reflect the enormous daily movement of ferries between Calabria and Sicily.
Urban transport: efficient leopard spot
In large Italian cities, urban public transport varies a lot: Milan is the Italian city with the largest and most busy metropolitan system in Italy, and is part of the European top ten in size: 5 lines, 111.8 km of network and 134 stations, with about 1.6 million passengers per day and 585 million per year.
In medium and small centers, the offer of public transport is often insufficient, with few limited and sometimes even unreliable runs and times. This encourages many people to use the car even for short journeys, aggravating traffic, pollution and lack of parking.
In recent years, especially in large cities, however, an alternative mobility network has developed: electric bikes, monopathies, car sharing and scooter sharing. In the large urban centers of the Center-North, these solutions are well integrated and used daily, but there is no national planning and integration with public transport is often lacking. In fact, these forms of urban transport are sustainable and useful for the “last kilometers”, but still remain complementary and non -substitute for public transport.
Italian transport: what the future reserves us
With the national recovery and resilience plan (PNRR), the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport has provided for investments for about 62 billion euros in transport by 2026. Among the objectives:
- Strengthening of regional and suburban railway lines
- Renewal of the bus fleet (with electric or hydrogen vehicles)
- Greater accessibility in the internal areas
- Intermodality and digital ticketing
The most evident problem of the transport system in Italy is in fact the profound territorial unevenness, also due to a complicated geography: the large urban areas with millions of inhabitants oppose mountains, jagged coasts, islands, rural villages with narrow streets and historical districts often difficult to reach with modern means. It is not surprising, therefore, that there is great differences between North and South, between urban and rural areas.
