Rimini added a thousand passengers a week to the coast without a new bus line

Rimini is giving 15 km of seafront back to people and taking it away from cars. ShuttleMare is how the people who used to drive there still get there.

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Operated by

With

Setting: Coastal resort, 15 km²
Service model: Tourism & seasonal
Replaces: Seasonal fixed shuttles
Booking: App, web and phone

A ShuttleMare minibus pulling away from a stop at Rimini's Stazione Marittima

Results

+1,000

Passengers a week

A thousand more journeys to the coast every week of the season.

9 min

Average wait

Short enough that people choose it over driving and parking.

3 months

Season length

Capacity that appears for the summer and stands down afterwards.

The challenge

A railway line between the city and its own beach

Rimini has 15 km of coastline and one of Europe's best-known seafronts. Until recently much of it was given over to cars — a sheet of asphalt lying between the hotels and the sand. The city's strategic plan set out to reverse that, and pedestrianising the seafront became its cornerstone.

But a railway line runs the length of the city, dividing the upstream neighbourhoods from the coast. Take away the parking and you have to answer a question: how does someone who cannot cycle, scooter or walk still get across that line to the sea? Bikes and e-scooters served everyone else. This was the gap they left.

15 km²

service area covered

9 min

average wait for a vehicle

What we deployed

Small vehicles, booked on a phone, free for the first season

01
Smaller vehicles
Air-conditioned minibuses rather than standard service buses — sized for the streets and for short coastal hops.
02
Across the railway line
Trips run between the upstream city and the seafront, the movement the rail corridor makes awkward on foot.
03
Booked on a phone
Ride now or schedule ahead, for up to five people at once — enough for a family to travel together.
04
Free for the first year
The council carried the fare so that trying it cost nothing, and habit had a chance to form.

Why this one is different

On-demand transport in a city that already had buses

Demand-responsive transport is usually deployed where demand is thin. Rimini is the opposite: a dense urban centre already served by scheduled buses. The demand was not created by an absence of transport — it came from people who had options and chose this one.

Zones, hours and fleet size are configuration, not infrastructure. The service expands for the season and contracts afterwards — no new line to approve, and nothing to dismantle.

How the assignment rules work

On site

Passengers wait where they already are — existing stops along the seafront, with no new infrastructure built.
Booked like a taxi: choose a stop, ride now or schedule ahead, for up to five people at once.
Air-conditioned minibuses rather than standard service buses — sized for short coastal hops.

Roberta FrisoniCouncillor for Urban Planning and Mobility, Comune di Rimini

“Possibly the greatest challenge we have faced — this being an area already well served by public transportation. We did not expect such high ridership numbers.”

Eugenio RicciPianificazione e Programmi, Start Romagna

From the passengers

“I tried it with my mother. She has trouble walking, which makes moving around town difficult, and the lack of parking spaces is a challenge too. We found it a great service — and a great way to spend taxpayers’ money.”

“It has been a positive experience. I enjoyed the service, found it easy to book, and it’s punctual. All good.”

“I’m very happy with the service. It’s very punctual, and it’s a simple, fast and practical way to get to the beach.”

15 km

of seafront being returned to people

Free

for every rider in the first season

In Roberta’s words

The regeneration started underground

Before anything changed above ground, Rimini built a system of retention tanks beneath Piazzale Kennedy so that untreated water no longer reaches the sea — a bathing-water plan the city pushed through first, on the grounds that the coast is its most precious resource.

Then the asphalt began to go. Roberta Frisoni stands above the beach at Piazzale Kennedy — now the most visited square on the seafront — and explains what replaces it: space to walk, cycle, sit and play, and a transport service for everyone who can do none of those things.

Similar challenges

The problem isn’t specific to seafronts

What made Rimini hard was not the beach. It was a city taking space back from cars, and a railway line that separated the neighbourhoods from the coast — so removing the parking meant answering how people who cannot cycle or walk would still get across.

Any city pedestrianising a centre, a waterfront or a historic quarter faces the same question. Where it holds, so does the model: small vehicles booked on a phone, a seasonal service sized to the months it is needed, and short waits that make leaving the car behind a reasonable choice.

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