Steer Davies Gleave, with SGS of Bologna, were commissioned by the public transport operators for the city of Rome and Lazio Region (ATAC and Cotral) to review the performance of the existing system and develop a new strategy by identifying ways of improving the cost recovery ratio whilst improving services and performance throughout. This paper discusses briefly the current position of the Roman public transport system and targets set for its recovery. It describes in detail the general approach followed, namely one of dealing with a number of issues simultaneously in order to develop a co-ordinated and integrated strategy. The strategy covered: new demand and revenue capture methods, improvements to bus and train services, improving the efficiency and flexibility of maintenance services and longer term proposals. A short term objective for this strategy is to improve the cost recovery ratio to 50% by the end of 1996. The work involved the preparation of marketing strategies and business development plans to improve passenger information, customer care and service patterns. On the cost side, proposals were prepared for restructuring maintenance services through the introduction of multi-skill training for all crafts to increase productivity. This paper describes these strategies while commenting on the reasoning behind them in the context of Rome's problems and determination to tackle them. The emphasis is away from the specific technical tools used in developing these strategies in order to concentrate on the task of building a consistent implementable strategy to bring Rome's public transport into the next century.
Samenvatting