The Double Challenge of Mobility
Regulating mobility is increasingly urgent. The demand for mobility is growing and such increase creates more and more traffic congestion and environmental pollution. On the other hand, passengers and goods require ever more services: from fluidity of flows to the curtailing of costs and fees. It is thus understandable that competition in the transport industry needs to be improved, in order to improve services and contain costs.
In Italy, as well as in other countries, the need to regulate mobility has brought to the creation of a Transport Authority, so that competition may prove beneficial for major stakeholders: users, builders and managers of infrastructure and related services, local, regional, national, and international public administration.
Competition requires regulation to balance the interests of various stakeholders. First of all, among the various modes of transport: think about the competition between trucking and railways for land transport or between trains and planes for medium-to-long distance travel. But the fact that competition needs to be regulated also concerns companies specializing in transport services: in the aviation industry, the low-cost revolution is apparent to all and is putting competitive pressure on traditional carriers; in railways there is competition for passengers among high-speed train companies, e.g. Trenitalia and NTV in Italy. There is also competition on freight among train companies of different countries. Also companies managing infrastructure have to compete: harbors must attract container shipping; airports have to perform hub and accessibility functions; logistical platforms must secure the handling of goods; highway toll collectors must warrant efficient road network services.
Competition concerning mobility is also expressed by territorial public administrations, which are called to develop efficient transport infrastructure and services in order to enable larger flows of commerce, attract new residential and industrial activities, decrease the cost and increase the speed of travel.
Given the importance and complexity of what is at stake, also in Italy a Transport Authority has been created, with the task of regulating mobility flows. The new Authority will have to prove its independence from the various interests at play, and resist entrenched monopolistic and oligopolistic temptations. It will have to ward off local sectional interests while guaranteeing universal access to service, also where infrastructure management is not very profitable; it will have to set tolls and fees at levels that are sustainable both for companies and consumers.
The first challenge for the fledgling Authority will be finding qualified and competent personnel. Since the law that instituted it posited that personnel would have to come from other public agencies, there will be work to be done about selecting and training the right employees. The right choice was made: the Italian Transport Authority is not born out of existing agencies, so that it can be truly independent. But this also means the Authority will have to quickly learn mobility priorities and needs and how to regulate them.