Vimercate replaced two empty bus lines with a service that fills up

Two circular routes running near-empty were withdrawn and replaced by on-demand across the whole municipality — 45 bus stops became 63, and weekly ridership went from 25 to around 500.

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Operated by

With

Setting: Municipality, 26,156 residents
Service model: On-demand, whole municipality
Operator: Zani Autoservizi
Live since: February 2019

A rider opening the door of the Zani Viaggi on-demand minivan in Vimercate

Results

×20

Ridership

From 25 passengers a week on the old lines to around 500 today.

45 → 63

Bus stops

Undersupplied neighbourhoods gained a stop closer to home.

10 min

Waiting time

Down from the old timetable, measured from request to pickup.

The challenge

Two circular lines, running mostly empty

Vimercate sits 25 km north-east of Milan, a municipality of 26,156 with six urban bus lines feeding ten intercity routes into the metropolitan rail and metro network. A study commissioned by the City Council found several of the local lines inefficient, with ticket revenue covering only about 10% of operating cost.

The problem was the shape of the town. The outlying frazioni are scattered, far enough from the centre that many zones were only partly served; Velasca, the most isolated, had no public transport at all.

In the summer of 2018 the Council withdrew two low-frequency circular routes whose buses were moving around empty most of the time, and decided to cover the whole municipality on demand instead — part of the city’s Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan.

2 lines cut

circular routes withdrawn in summer 2018

~10%

of operating cost covered by fares before

What we deployed

A service area instead of a route, and 18 new stops

01
One 8-seater, then two
Launched 11 February 2019 with a single minivan; demand forced a second vehicle by September.
02
Booked in the app
Riders get a confirmation, then a pickup time and place about 15 minutes before the ride.
03
Small buses, narrow streets
Minibuses keep average speed up and reach streets a full-size bus cannot.
04
Data for the Council
O/D matrices, walking distance to stops, vehicle kilometres and occupancy, collected throughout.

45 bus stops became 63

Rather than redraw a route, we defined an area of operation across Vimercate and its frazioni, and added stops — from 45 to 63. Neighbourhoods that were previously undersupplied gained a stop closer to home, and riders board and alight only at authorised local and intercity stops.

How virtual stops are placed

On site

Set a destination in the app; the pickup time and stop arrive about 15 minutes ahead.
A single ticket on board — €1 during the trial, €1.50 once the service went permanent.
The driver gets the stop sequence, the timing and the route between stops.

Walter BossiHead of the Municipal Transport Office, Vimercate

Similar challenges

When cutting a line is the right call

Vimercate is the case for withdrawing a route rather than defending it. Two circular lines were carrying almost nobody; replacing them with an on-demand area multiplied ridership roughly twentyfold and gave the outlying frazioni coverage they never had.

The Council confirmed the service beyond its trial and put it on a permanent footing at around 500 passengers a week, and is weighing a third vehicle that would extend it to Saturdays. The conditions are common in small municipalities: scattered frazioni, one or two lines whose buses run empty, and at least one neighbourhood with no service at all.

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