Transport and infrastructure in Italy
Our listing of the primary types of transport compares the infrastructure of Italy with the average of all countries in Europe. Overall, the main traffic and transport routes are well developed and in comparatively good condition.In terms of the length of its rail network, Italy ranks 54th in the world with 0.28 meters per inhabitant. In total, the rail network is 16,779 kilometers long. Freight traffic on the rails most recently totaled 24.26 billion tons and kilometers traveled. Passenger traffic reached 27.69 billion passenger-kilometers in 2021.
The waterways listed refer to inland traffic on rivers and canals. The number of ports includes those located on the 7,600 km of coastline. In 2021, about 11.30 million freight containers were transported.
› Airports in Italy
Back to overview: Italy
Road traffic
The network of roads and highways has a total length of 487,700 km. For each of the country's 59.11 million inhabitants, this corresponds to 8.25 meters. This puts Italy in 64th place in the global ranking. However, the country's size and population density of around 196 inhabitants per km² must also be taken into account. Countries with fewer inhabitants in the same or even larger area naturally achieve quite different values here and have to connect remote areas to the transport network despite a smaller population.With an average of 3404 traffic fatalities per year (2013 - 2019), road traffic in Italy is considered relatively safe. This corresponds to 5.7 accident fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants per year. By comparison, this figure is 12.3 in the USA and 17.0 worldwide.
In Italy, traffic drives on the right-hand side of the road, i.e. people drive in the right-hand lane and overtake on the left. Oncoming traffic comes toward you on the left side. This regulation was enforced on October 20th, 1924. Regionally, this also applied before, now it exists for all parts of the country. Here you can also find an overview of all countries with left-hand traffic.
Italy | |||
| total | per 1 mio inhabitants | per km² | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Roadways | 487,700 km | 8,250.77 km | 1,618.44 m |
| Railroads | 16,800 km | 283.86 km | 55.68 m |
| Waterways | 2,400 km | 40.60 km | 7.96 m |
| Commercial harbors | 1,296 | 21.93 | 0.004 |
| Airports | 43 | 0.73 | 0.143 |
Europe | |||
| total | per 1 mio inhabitants | per km² | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Roadways | 6,708,900 km | 11,154.38 km | 1,111.71 m |
| Railroads | 258,600 km | 429.97 km | 42.85 m |
| Waterways | 54,800 km | 91.17 km | 9.09 m |
| Commercial harbors | 15,273 | 25.39 | 0.003 |
| Airports | 573 | 0.95 | 0.000 |
Data sources used
• Global Health Observatory Data Repository (World Health Organization)• UNCTAD
• Internation Union of Railways (UIC)
• CIA Factbook
• OECD Statistics
• Wikipedia (german)
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