It is called transport poverty and, according to a study commissioned by Transport & Environment from Tessa, a research agency at the Università degli Studi della Tuscia, it is the social face of a mobility system lacking adequate infrastructure and services, still heavily dependent on polluting and costly energy sources and outdated technologies. The analysis finds that in Italy almost one in five families struggles to afford the cost of mobility. Around 4.9 million Italian households — 18.46% of the total — allocate to mobility a share of their spending budget at least double the national median.

Forced car ownership and energy poverty fuel transport poverty

Transport poverty does not coincide with economic poverty: it measures mobility costs, the availability of alternatives to the car, and access to essential services such as work, school and healthcare. Transport poverty often overlaps with energy poverty and also manifests as a specific vulnerability in areas where alternatives to private transport are scarce or non-existent. While in metropolitan cities, where public transport is more widespread, even low-income families can afford to own fewer cars (an average of 0.5 per household), in small municipalities with fewer than 50,000 inhabitants car ownership remains high even among the poorest families (0.9 cars). There therefore exists a form of forced car ownership — a condition of absolute dependence on private mobility — that many families struggle to sustain financially. This dependence exposes low-income households in particular to fuel vulnerability, where the cost of fuel weighs critically on household budgets. Fifty-seven per cent of the families affected by this financial hardship live in the South of Italy.

"In Italy, mobility is not a neutral playing field: it multiplies economic and territorial inequalities that already exist. — declared Esther Marchetti, Clean Transport Advocacy Manager at T&E Italia — Millions of families do not use their cars by choice, but because they have no alternatives, and they bear the brunt of energy cost shocks that we cannot control. Two crises in four years expose a structural fragility — that of a fossil-fuel mobility model — which weighs on household budgets, on the climate and on everyone's health. Public resources should be used to overcome dependence on oil, not for temporary and poorly targeted fuel duty cuts."

The scarcity of alternatives to the car is concentrated along the Alpine and Apennine arcs, on the islands and in the inland areas of central and southern Italy: there are 766 municipalities with a high level of criticality, accounting for 9.7 per cent of the total. Significant disparities are also found within cities, where it is often the lowest-income neighbourhoods that have the fewest alternatives: in Rome, 42.5 per cent of the population lives in areas with fewer than 300 daily public transport services per 1,000 inhabitants, compared with over 2,500 in the best-served central district. The main factor associated with the scarcity of alternatives is not income, but territorial marginality — that is, distance from schools, healthcare and mobility infrastructure. In the South and on the Islands, perceived accessibility to local services is lower than in the North, particularly for nurseries and pre-schools in Sicily and Sardinia, and for families with young children this can translate into a concrete barrier to employment.

Decarbonising and facilitating access to clean solutions

In wealthier provinces, a more modern vehicle fleet coexists with higher per-capita emissions, linked to greater mobility intensity and longer journey distances. According to the report's authors, this is a clear demonstration that fleet renewal must go hand in hand with its decarbonisation: replacing older vehicles without eliminating the use of fossil fuels is not enough to reduce the emissions impact.

In municipalities where average income is higher, the uptake of electric cars is more than five times greater than in municipalities where average income is lower. Territorial disparities are also profound: the province of Trento has over 50 times more electric cars per inhabitant than the province of Crotone — a gap amplified by local tax regimes — with 81 per cent of provinces boasting more than 1,000 public charging points concentrated in the North as of 2025. The transition therefore risks entrenching existing inequalities.

"The mobility transition can also be a social policy, but only if we make clean solutions accessible to those who are currently excluded from them," added Marchetti. "Structural national interventions are needed, calibrated to specific territories and different vulnerability profiles, to reduce costs and protect the poorest families."

According to T&E, Italy could leverage resources from the ETS2, the Social Climate Fund and the budgetary flexibility granted by the EU for energy (2026–2028), to support a just mobility transition. This means strengthening public transport with electric vehicles and social fares for vulnerable families; making electric cars accessible, offering incentives for second-hand vehicles and developing a new emissions-based tax framework; investing in inland areas with shared and community electric mobility, on-demand transport and public charging infrastructure even in the least-served territories; and monitoring transport poverty through dedicated indicators and assessments of the impact of public investment.

Local initiatives to promote mobility, from cities to small municipalities

At municipal level, a number of initiatives are attempting to tackle transport poverty. In Genova, the experimental project "Taxi Sociale Universale Lagaccio" has been launched to guarantee the right to mobility for residents of the Lagaccio neighbourhood and to concretely address the criticalities and structural isolation of the area, exacerbated by the current difficulties affecting local public transport. The project involves collaboration between the Comune di Genova, the Municipio I Centro Est and Cooperativa RadioTaxi Genova: the service must be booked via the RadioTaxi operations centre at least 12 hours in advance, and no later than one hour before the required journey. Each vehicle can carry a maximum of 4 passengers on a circular route.

In the Appennino Reggiano, Aladinobus is up and running: an on-demand service that allows users to book their journeys quickly via a dedicated app. The vehicle is activated only when needed, avoiding empty runs and reducing kilometres travelled, with a resulting lower environmental impact and greater overall sustainability of the service. The initiative represents an innovative pilot scheme designed to make public transport more flexible, efficient and accessible, responding concretely to the needs of the local population while also enhancing the environmental and tourist appeal of the Apennine territory.

Santu Vitu On demand is a project promoting sustainable mobility in the municipality of San Vito dei Normanni, in the province of Brindisi, by activating and managing an on-demand shared transport system. The fleet consists of 3 electric/hybrid minivans with 9 seats each. The service is managed through a digital platform, supported by a call centre, from which passengers can book their journey. Particular attention is paid to the most vulnerable categories — the elderly and people with reduced mobility — who can use the service with vehicles equipped for assisted transport.

TAD Sud Salento is an on-demand public transport initiative dedicated to inland areas, managed by the Unione dei Comuni Terra di Leuca. The service was created with the aim of improving mobility in the small municipalities of the area and can be booked via app or call centre.

The project Percorsi di Arvo Lupo d'Aspromonte involves nine municipalities in the Piana di Gioia Tauro in the creation of an integrated, sustainable and accessible public transport system. To date, the municipalities have acquired two electric buses to form the initial core of the new inter-territory connection service. Both are equipped with hydraulic ramps to allow access for people with disabilities.