Decrees don’t arrive at the stops, buses arrive. When they arrive. And this is why in the fuel decree the crux is not only in the 80 million put on the renewal of local public transport contracts, but in the money taken away from the fund which should help already tired cities to run the metro, trams and rapid lines. The Government puts a patch on the work of those who guide, control, maneuver and keep the service running every day. But then he also delves into the chapter that serves to make that service work better. The result is the usual Italian scene: one hand fixes the present, the other messes up the future.
In the legislative decree of 22 May 2026, n. 89, the Government puts on paper an increase of 80 million euros per year from 2026 for the National Fund for local public transport, intended for the contractual renewal of the sector. An expected measure, because public transport is also done by real people: drivers, train drivers, workers, shifts, salaries, enormous responsibilities.
The detail comes a few lines later, in the financial coverage: the decree also provides for a reduction of 65 million in 2026 and 80 million in 2027 of the Single Fund for the strengthening of metropolitan networks and rapid mass transport. If we also consider the further reduction from 80 million to a spending authorization for mobility interventions, the account of the coverage taken away from mobility rises to a total of 225 million.
Therefore, the local public transport contract is financed, which is sacrosanct, but part of the coverage also comes from a fund which serves precisely to strengthen the metro and rapid transport. Kyoto Club, taking up the protests of the Municipalities, speaks of a negative balance of 145 million for Italian cities and cites concerns about new tramways, metropolitan extensions and renewal of rolling stock.
Cities are waiting for buses, not slogans
The contradiction weighs heavily because urban public transport is not a whim for administrators with a green agenda. It is one of the most concrete infrastructures for reducing traffic, emissions and inequalities. ISPRA recalls that transport is responsible for 31% of national emissions and that over 90% of those emissions are linked to road transport.
The 2026 Istat annual report also places urban mobility within the chapter of climate mitigation actions: in urban centres, which concentrate around 75% of global energy consumption, reducing emissions also involves more sustainable mobility. Istat reports that between 2015 and 2024 in the capital municipalities the ratio between cars with medium-high polluting potential and those with medium-low potential dropped by 56.8 points. Ergo: cars in circulation have become less polluting on average, but the pressure from private cars remains there. For this reason, taking away resources from the metro, trams and rapid transport means weakening the very thing that should make the alternative credible.
And in the meantime, Italy remains a country full of cars. According to Isfort’s 22nd Audimob Report, in the first half of 2025 the car remains dominant in travel, at 60.8%, while public transport rises to just 8.9%. The fleet in circulation has reached 41.3 million cars, with more than 70 cars per 100 inhabitants.
Here the excise decree stops being a technical matter and becomes very everyday. Because if a person has to choose between the car and a bus that comes when he wants, he will choose the car. If a city has to convince thousands of commuters to give up the wheel, it needs routes, frequencies, vehicles, tracks, depots, maintenance. Posters with leaves are not enough.
Sustainable mobility cannot be done with one hand. You can’t tell people to use public transport and then treat urban networks like a piggy bank to be opened when something else needs to be covered.
The usual future postponed
There is also another piece in the decree: the excise duties on fuel are redetermined from 23 May to 6 June 2026, with petrol at 622.90 euros per thousand liters and diesel at 572.90 euros per thousand litres. The provision also contains measures for road transport, agriculture and other coverage.
The problem is not helping those who work with the means, nor renewing long-awaited contracts. The problem is continuing to hold everything together with cuts, movements, funds taken from one pocket and stuffed into the other. Thus public transport always remains “strategic”, but in installments. Always decisive, but later. Always central, as long as you don’t need too much money just when you need to make it work. At the bus stop, meanwhile, no one is waiting for the ecological transition. Wait for the tram. And if it doesn’t pass, he takes the car.
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