Built around an archipelago of lagoon islands, Venice has entrusted its daily life to a waterborne transport system with the vaporetto waterbus, which has maintained its identity since 1881 while allowing its communities to enter into a relationship with each other and with the surrounding territory. Hence, by contrasting isolation and encouraging people to move, public transport has contributed to the construction of a unique city that is enhanced and complemented by the mainland, with the construction of a bridge for vehicles in 1933, and the integration of road transport from the terminal of Piazzale Roma to the lagoon and beyond.

A dynamic and constantly evolving reality that has made technological research and knowledge of the territory its strong point, developing an increased number of lines, stops, landing stages, waterborne crafts and road vehicles, up to the most recent two tram lines. From the first vaporetto on the Grand Canal in 1881 to the creation of the tram network first (1891) and then the trolleybus network (1933-39) in Mestre and Lido, the water link of 1882 between Venice and Piazza Barche in Mestre, the extension of the lagoon navigation lines connecting the Islands of Venice in 1890, the opening of Piazzale Roma and Ponte della Libertà (1933), the construction of the tramline between Favaro and Venice (2014) and between Marghera and Mestre Centro ( 2015) up to the complete electrification project of the Lido and Pellestrina vehicle service (which will come into operation in 2020). The exhibition, “Public Transport in Venice – Where water and land meet” is all about this.

A public transport network between the lagoon and the mainland that has accompanied the urban, social and economic development of Venice and its production centres and its natural propensity towards a metropolitan dimension; an excursus on the past to meet the challenges that appear on the horizon of a delicate but resilient city.

This exhibition is only a small part of the process that Actv has started to implement to enhance its documentary heritage through the recovery and preservation of memoires and tools and by analysing documents that witness the changes and evolutions, while preparing to face the big challenges in the first decades of the 21st century, linked to the protection of the environment and the development of a complex city.
The awareness of one’s own history is an important tool to help plan the future and the challenges it entails. To this end Actv has a long history of knowledge, technology, research, professionalism, spirit of service and, above all, of love for the lagoon and its territory that it crosses every day, at all hours, and no matter what the weather conditions.

Public Transport in Venice. Where water and land meet.
Arsenale di Venezia / free entrance

City of Venice and the Metropolitan City of Venice
Luigi Brugnaro, Mayor

AVM Group (AVM Spa, Actv Spa e VeLa Spa) | Giovanni Seno, General Manager

AVM Azienda Veneziana Mobilità Spa | Paolo Pettinelli, President

Actv Spa | Luca Scalabrin, President

VeLa Spa | Piero Rosa Salva, Sole Director

Layout design
120 grammi :: Laboratorio di Architettura
Carlo Pavan and Nicola Pavan architects

Graphic design
Giorgio Bombieri

Selection of archive materials
Foscara Porchia, Annamaria Pozzan

Sound design
Nicola Di Croce

Organisation
AVM Holding – STAFF

Vintage photographs
Archivio Actv Spa (Reale Fotografia Giacomelli, Ferruzzi, Cameraphoto, Graziadei, Archivio Artistico Borlui, Sambo Foto, Soc. It. Ernesto Breda and Sambo Foto)

Set-up
Tosetto srl, Bassetto Impianti snc, Ferraro srl, Cantiere Actv

Printing
Firma srl