The Company

CTM S.p.A. is the company that manages local public transport in the greater Cagliari area. Every day it provides urban and suburban mobility services with the goal of offering efficient, safe and sustainable transport.

WHO WE ARE

CTM is a joint-stock company with entirely public capital. The shareholders are the Municipalities of:

• Cagliari
• Quartu Sant'Elena
• Quartucciu
• Selargius
• Monserrato
• Elmas

The company operates in the Local Public Transport (LPT) sector and is a reference point for the daily mobility of thousands of citizens.

MISSION AND VALUES

To guarantee a public transport service that is:

• reliable
• accessible
• innovative
• sustainable

CTM constantly invests in fleet renewal, digitalization of services and improvement of the user experience, promoting integrated and environmentally conscious mobility.

FROM THE SOCIETÀ STRADE FERRATE DEL CAMPIDANO TO CTM S.P.A.

On 3 September 1893, while tuberculosis was raging in Cagliari, amid the enthusiasm of a large crowd and in the presence of the Authorities, the first steam convoy, garlanded with a banner reading "Long live the King", departed from Cagliari station to reach Quartu Sant'Elena via Pirri, Monserrato, Selargius and Quartucciu.

The tram carried with it the hope of new economic developments for the transport of goods and for the hinterland of an island with 600,000 inhabitants.

The line was managed by the well-known Cagliari entrepreneur Luigi Merello, after whom the famous Cagliari avenue is named, until 1911. In those difficult years, during the "bread war", trams were thrown into the sea by unemployed port workers and labourers, and the Quartu station was set on fire.

In 1911, the Società Strade Ferrate del Campidano was taken over by Amsicora Capra, owner of the Società Vinalcool, who bought it to export the wines produced in his factories to the port of Cagliari, from where they reached the mainland market.

The company took the name TRANVIA DEL CAMPIDANO. In 1913 the service was extended to the Poetto beach, and the company was renamed TRANVIA DEL CAMPIDANO E DEL POETTO.

On 21 July 1912 the Società Elettrica Sarda SES obtained from the Municipality of Cagliari the concession for two urban tramway lines, and the SOCIETÀ TRANVIE DELLA SARDEGNA was born.

But the war had not been accounted for, and in May 1915 Italy entered the First World War. Rail traffic ground to a halt in those years, and Sardinia struggled with epidemics of malaria and anthrax.

In 1921 the era of the Poetto began — a stretch of beach that Cagliari residents had never really considered, preferring the Scaffa beach between La Playa and Giorgino on the western coast.

In July 1928 the number of cars in Cagliari reached 700 and vehicular traffic became chaotic; tram stops were therefore abolished.

In April 1929, the merger of the Società Tranvie del Campidano e del Poetto and the Società Tranvie della Sardegna gave birth to the SOCIETÀ ANONIMA TRANVIE DELLA SARDEGNA. The majority stake remained with the owners of the Tranvie del Campidano (Vinalcool).

In June 1929 the Autotram service was inaugurated. Cagliari had just voted in the Fascist plebiscite: 80,000 votes in favour and 900 against; six months later, in January 1930, the electric tramway service to the Campidano began, linking the city of Cagliari with the outlying area. It was the year in which Guglielmo Marconi was testing the radiotelephone station between Sardinia and the mainland at Golfo Aranci. Cagliari surpassed 100,000 inhabitants.

On 10 June 1940 Italy entered the war alongside Nazi Germany, and while Cagliari prepared with air-raid shelters, shaded blue lights and food rationing, the transport service continued regularly. But in 1943 Cagliari was bombed by the Americans and the entire historic centre was razed to the ground. Hundreds of victims lay under the rubble and the city was evacuated.

The tramways did not escape the disaster.

When in September 1943 the Second World War ended and reconstruction began under Mayor Gavino Dessì Deliperi, the tramways too resumed reconstruction work, and in November 1944 the citizens of Cagliari had two tramway lines again: Piazza Yenne/Sant'Avendrace and Via Roma/Via San Benedetto.

The first external line to return to service after the war was the one to Quartu, which allowed workers from the Campidano to reach Cagliari. Service was restored between Piazza Garibaldi and Buoncammino, and trips to the Poetto resumed. The urban track was extended beyond the Church of Bonaria to San Bartolomeo. In 1949 the tram tracks were removed from the central carriageway of Via Roma, and from then on traffic ran on the sea side.

In 1950, alongside the trams, buses entered service on the first line, called AB Piazza d'Armi/Via Gianturco, and the second, FC Ferrovie Statali/Calamosca.

In the second half of the 1950s, the company's Tram Centre was built on an area of 58,000 sq m with well-equipped depots and workshops.

The road network took hold; the old trams were abandoned and the modern — for the era — trolleybuses took the stage.

Until 1967 the Società Tranvie Sarde managed urban and suburban services; then the Municipality of Cagliari, the Province of Cagliari and the Municipality of Quartu Sant'Elena took over the company, forming the CTP Consorzio Trasporti Pubblici and the A.C.T. Azienda Consorziale dei Trasporti.

In the 1970s new ticket machines and cancelling machines were trialled, and in 1971 the "Single Agent" system was introduced, with the abolition of ticket collectors on buses.

The 1980s and 1990s were characterised by increased service provision and corresponding network adjustments, heavy investment in trolleybus vehicles, the first technological improvements with new magnetic cancelling machines replacing paper ones, and company-wide computerisation.

In 1996 ACT became CTM, and we arrive at CTM TODAY.

In February 2001 the company was transformed into a joint-stock company as required by the TPL reform legislation (L. 422/97 and L.400/90).