Saturday, April 20, 2024

Vogon Today

Selected News from the Galaxy

StartMag

This is how Confindustria calls on the State to fill the holes in local public transport

7 months ago babelfish

This is how Confindustria calls on the State to fill the holes in local public transport

Local public transport: anatomy of a crisis. The Confindustria associations in the sector estimate missing resources for 2023 at around 1,700 million euros. To guarantee a sustainable economic balance in the sector, more than 5.1 billion euros would be needed, the Confindustria associations ask. All the details on a parliamentary hearing

Lost revenues, extra costs of fuel and electricity and inflationary dynamics. These are the three main items that have a negative impact on the budgets of local public transport. And the numbers are mind-boggling. “To ensure a sustainable economic balance in the sector, over 5.1 billion additional euros would be needed in the period 2021-2024, of which around 2.4 billion euros would be needed to compensate for losses in revenues, extra fuel costs and an increase in underlying inflation in the years 2021 and 2022” . This was stated by the technicians of Agens , the Association that represents the interests of the transport and services sector in the Confindustria system, during the hearing in the Transport Commission of the Chamber and Senate, with the associations Anav (traveler transport) and Asstra (regional and local transport companies).

LOCAL PUBLIC TRANSPORT: MISSING RESOURCES OF 1,700 MILLION EUROS IN 2023

Agens estimates missing resources for 2023 at around 1,700 million euros and the prospects for 2024 are no better. “Still high inflation is expected for 2024 (+2.9% according to the latest ECB estimates) – writes Agens – and a loss of tariff revenues of no less than 6% compared to the pre-covid figure, for a requirement that is currently not covered by over 1 billion euros".

JUST TO MAKE UP THE DAMAGES OF INFLATION WE NEED 700 MILLION EUROS

Agens, in his analysis with the other two sector associations in Confindustria such as Anav and Asstra, underlines that the energy crisis has rekindled the inflationary dynamic and that the additional resources "allocated by the 2022 budget law on the TPL National Fund do not even allow the recovery of previous planned inflation". Only to guarantee the "recovery of previous inflation and the adjustment to planned inflation for 2023 would it be necessary to increase the annual allocation of the FNT by at least 700 million euros to be allocated as a priority to the revaluation of the fees". Stefano Rossi, vice president of Agens, who presented the study to the Chamber, intervened precisely on this point. “The serious surge in inflation – said vice-president Rossi of Agens – has made the need to adapt and index the national fund for TPL unavoidable, which currently lacks an estimated figure of around 700 million, so as to adapt to the inflation of the fees for companies' service contracts and which adds to the incomplete recognition of the serious increase in fuel and energy costs and the lost revenues of the pandemic period. Connected to this, the start of negotiations for the renewal of the CCNL which starts from a platform presented by trade unions with important values".

FUNDS FOR LOCAL PUBLIC TRANSPORT IN THE LATEST BUDGET LAW

The latest budget law has allocated for the National TPL Fund an amount equal, compared to the 2021 allocation, to +100 million euros for the year 2022, +200 million euros for the year 2023, +300 million euros for the year 2024, +395 million euros starting from the year 2025. These funds, according to the Confindustria associations in the sector, are not enough, especially to respond to the current inflationary pressures. But not only. Agens technicians detect a "lack of operational resources" that are not adequate to:

  • ensure inflationary adjustment
  • compensate for the increase in operating and operating costs due to the introduction of new alternative fuel vehicles into the fleets
  • finance the increase in supply levels, in line with infrastructure investments, essential to achieve the ambitious modal shift objectives from private transport towards public transport defined by the PNRR
  • allow the production system to cope with the significant increases in costs expected for the renewal of the national collective bargaining agreement for autoferrotranvieri (the union platform proposal of 11 July presents a request for an overall increase of 18% and a quantifiable higher cost once fully operational for the transport sector TPL in €900 million)”.

LOCAL PUBLIC TRANSPORT: INCREASES IN INFLATION AND RENEWAL OF THE CCNL FOR 2024

From 2024 the bills for local public transport will be even higher. What will weigh will be "the increase in the operating and running costs of the new alternative fuel vehicles progressively introduced into the rolling stock, an increase that can only be reabsorbed in the medium/long term" and "the renewal of the national collective labor agreement for road-railway-tram drivers for a higher cost than when fully operational, in based on the requests contained in the proposed union platform, it can be quantified at 900 million euros".

WHO REPRESENTS AGENS

Agens, as mentioned, is the Association that represents the interests of the transport and services sector within Confindustria, it is chaired by Arrigo Giana and its General Director is Fabrizio Molina. It has numerous vice presidents: Amalia Colaceci, Filippo Contino, Francesco Parlato, Federica Santini, Gianpiero Strisciuglio, Stefano Rossi.

Agens represents important realities of Italian local public transport:

  • AMTS CATANIA SpA
  • NMSpA
  • Italia srl ​​arrives
  • AST SpA
  • ATAC SpA
  • ATM SpA
  • Autoguidovie SpA
  • Busitalia Campania SpA
  • Busitalia – Sita Nord Srl
  • Busitalia Veneto SpA
  • Cotral SpA
  • Dolomiti Bus SpA
  • Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane SpA
  • Ferrovie del Sud Est e Servizi Automobilistici Srl
  • Ferservizi SpA
  • Italferr SpA
  • Mercitalia Logistics SpA
  • Mercitalia S&T Srl
  • Rail Cargo Carrier Italy Srl
  • Simet SpA
  • STN – Società Trasporti Novaresi Srl
  • TPL Linea Srl
  • Trenord Srl

ALL LOCAL PUBLIC TRANSPORT NUMBERS

Local public transport, in its various modes (road transport, rail transport, subways, trams, etc.) generates over 11 billion euros in turnover every year and transports over 5.5 billion passengers for 2 billion journeys-km through just under 900 managers. 114,000 workers are employed in the sector, according to data from the National TPL Observatory – Annual Report 2019-2020.

THE IMPACTS OF COVID AND THE ENERGY CRISIS ON LOCAL PUBLIC TRANSPORT

Agens, in his speech to the Chambers, underlined how the sector was strongly impacted first by the Covid-19 health emergency and then by the energy crisis. “The collapse in demand reached levels higher than 90% compared to normal values ​​during the 2020 lockdown period, with a loss of traffic revenue on a monthly basis of over 250 million euros. The collapse in demand and the consequent losses in revenues from traffic and profitability of companies in the sector continued throughout 2020, but also in the following two-year period 2021-2022 and to date the levels of demand and revenues from traffic have not yet been recovered pre-Covid traffic – we read in the report -. According to our estimates, supported by periodic monitoring data published by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport, the loss of passengers stood at an average of 55% in 2020 compared to pre-Covid levels, between 35% and 30%. in 2021 and in the 1st quarter of 2022, and is currently still far from being reabsorbed”.

THE ENERGY CRISIS OVERWHELMES LOCAL PUBLIC TRANSPORT

Added to these numbers are those of the energy crisis that exploded with the conflict in Ukraine which generated the explosion of energy and fuel prices, the second cost item for LPT companies after personnel. “According to the calculations of the competent offices of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport, the increases in the price of diesel ( +27% in the second quarter of 2022 compared to the same period of 2021 ) and the increases in the price of methane (+125%) have resulted in a higher cost for the purchase of fuel incurred by companies in the sector of approximately €120 million in the second quarter of 2022 – writes Agens -. Almost similar values ​​were recorded in the first quarter of 2022 and are estimated by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport itself for the third quarter of this year, for an overall extra cost incurred by TPL companies in 2022 quantifiable at around €280 million, already at net of the effects of excise duty reductions. Added to this are the effects of the increase in the cost of electricity which, considering exclusively the cost of the electricity used to power the vehicles used in LPT services, can be quantified at over €400 million in 2022 . But the trend of increasing fuel and energy prices continued in 2023, resulting in an overall annual extra cost burdening companies in the sector estimated at over €450 million, in the absence, so far, of support measures from the State".

This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/smartcity/ecco-come-confindustria-invoca-lo-stato-per-ripianare-i-buchi-del-trasporto-pubblico-locale/ on Fri, 29 Sep 2023 06:54:11 +0000.