I have tried both services and safe to say is that the Marconi Express is overall faster than the Minimetro, at the cost of being so much more expensive (they made it almost €4 more expensive than when they inaugurated it) and at times breaks down. In the latter case, it is still a €12.80 ticket for a replacement bus which is nowhere near as fast as there is a 20 miles/h (30 km/h) speed limit within Bologna. The stop at Lazzaretto was built also because it is near the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Bologna for students, but they usually use bus service 35 instead
also had a similar experience with the replacement bus, it was also constantly held up by traffic and only ran every 45 minutes (ig there were maybe two busses in service) - therefore on the way back the uber for 10€ in total was the better option, especially since theres a special designated underground pickup area at bologna station right near the highspeed tracks:))
@@connectingwings7212 what you said is correct. The reason why there were probably only two buses on the replacement service was because most of the buses used on such replacements mainly work on route 944 which is another airport route that leaves you just outside the Maggiore Hospital in Bologna. Besides, all buses regularly used on airport services are based in a depot in the east side of the city so it makes difficult to promptly activate a replacement bus. I travel to Bologna often and indeed at times I get picked up from that underground Kiss and Ride space on the side of the high speed platforms
That's why I really hate Bologna Airport. When I'm not on my own, I usually just take a Taxi. 20€ can get you anywhere in the old town, while you have to pay 25€ just to get to the main station with two people. I also find the ride quality to be absolutely horrible. (Also, the Bologna airport is really bad as well, always overcrowded and really cramped). It would make sense to have and Park&Ride at Lazaretto, but they don't. I tried to park there once and it wasn't allowed for more than 10 minutes or so.
Nice and full of information video, thank you for your great work! Just a thing that you might not know: the Lazzaretto stop of the Marconi Express is currently "in the middle of nothing", as you said, but - apart from being close to the Engineering department of the University of Bologna, as it was mentioned by another viewer - it has been conceived as the first step of a mass transit oriented urban development plan, given that they are building condos and service buildings around that stop, so that in the near future many more people will be using that stop. Which adds more perplexity to the small-sized units running on the line, already seeming undersized right now
Oof, I do love me a good gadgetbahn. Great video! I enjoyed hearing about these, never heard of them before! Thanks for making a video about it! Also it's really fun hearing your accent switch whenever you pronounce names! :D
The marconi express , apart from the problems u mentioned, also has another big flaw. The ride is very very unconfertable. Not like just a bit of bouncing, but actually leaning over a significant amount in turns and even on the straights. Its worse than some rollercoeasters. Combine this with the fact that its always jam packet with people and their luggage, means that you will be thrown around, potentially hitting other passengers with an elbow or a backpack. Also, it doesnt take you to the city center, but to the main train station, which is a 20 minute walk away from the city center. In general, the level of service provided for the outragoues price is abysmal. It also replaced a bus service that did the same route and was way less expensive and more confortable and had more capacity. Overall, considering it was opened recently, its practically a legal scam, a cash grab. Unfortunately, this is the trend with many airport rail connections. Exploiting travellers and tourists who often have no choice but to use the super expensive transit link or get a rental car. Orly had this with its Orlyval (luclkly it now has tram and metro links) Brussels has this with a ridicoulous 10 euro or more upcharge for a normal train to airport. Bologna has it with the Marconi express. Pisa (another regional italian airport) has it too. It also recently introduced a people mover system, with all the same flaws as the Marconi Express, however it is even worse because it doesnt simply replace a bus service, but they actually ripped out normal convetional train tracks for a stupid, expensive, low capacity, uncomfortable people mover. There were actual train services running right into the airport, like in many other italian cities (Leonardo Express as you mentioned), but now there is a Gadgetbahn.
Good job! I appreciate that you pronounced all the Italian names correctly: very professional. And since there are so many head shots, I couldn't help but notice your sensuous lips. OmG!
Hello! I was born 30km south of Perugia, in Umbria, and I go to Perugia once or twice a month on average. From what I've heard from people and local uni students, everybody HATES the minimetro system, because it is very very very limited, it is very expensive to run, it has stupid opening times and it is the stations are the places where drug deals and crimes happens the most (Perugia being in the top 3 of all italian cities with the biggest drug problem) and it was first conceived just as a political stunt for the prior years elections, to elect the President of region Umbria. I don't have a strong opinion on it to be honest, because I last used it...when I was 11 maybe (so 2010). You definitely gained a subscriber with this video, I really hope you enjoyed my stunning region.
@@raisedahell5165 Encomiabile il tuo intento di riportare opinioni di altri (solo negative però, mi raccomando) e dati così lusinghieri che fanno apparie Perugia una specie di Gotham City governata da politici corrotti. L'autore americano del video credo che ci sia trovato come a casa sua quandi ci è stato... Complimenti, continua così
1:14 neat turntable for being more for switching direction side than for turning the pod 5:37 oh a turntable allows for shunting pods to maintenance, unlike a turning loop! Cool
If you just wanna ride the Marconi Express, you can just buy a ticket to Lazzaretto for EUR 2,30 and not leave the station at the Airport. Lazzaretto has a parking lot, which a lot of people (both airport users and airport employees) use. The connection time is not unmatched, for example here in Geneva the train takes 6 minutes between the Airport and the city center.
Lots of airport trains are overpriced because they figure if you spent hundreds if not thousands on a plane ticket what's another ten or 15 bucks? The only problem is that eliminates another type of frequent user-airport employees. Unless they set up special ticketing and pricing for them (possible) the low wage employees that operate the security and check in lines, man the restaurants and stores, and clean the walkways and bathrooms will never pay thirty bucks round trip.
Yup. Especially when you consider that with 12€ you can travel 1 hour and half with regional trains. You can go from bologna to rimini (a city on the sea) paying less then what you pay to go from bologna station to the airport...
That's weird, I don't remember how much we paid exactly, but I remember that a year earlier it already wasn't competitively priced with a taxi for 4 people needing to get to the city centre. With the uncomfortable ride and the deafeningly loud announcements on top of that I feel like it's not a good system at all
This was a fun video to watch, and you stitched together the multiple days really well. I can see how your videography and presentation is continuing to get stronger as well. Are you back in the U.S. now, or still adventuring around the globe?
7:20 is that not the same form factor monorail as Jacksonville FL's? I heard Jacksonville wants to replace its guideways' beams with pavement for autonomous bus-pods but now it seems this kind of monorail isn't obsolete 🤮
I think there must be a law in the EU about ticket fares for public transport going to an airport, because it's also very expensive to go to Charles-De-Gaulle via RER B and Orly via line 14 in France
I don't know about such a law, however I can explain why the Marconi Express and Pisa Mover are so expensive: they were built with project financing contracts. Basically the local government makes a deal with a private company, granting them permission to build a piece of infrastructure: the company pays for construction, but is then allowed to keep almost all of the earnings for a number of years. In some cases, if a minimum profit is not met, the local government has to pay the difference to the operating company, but if a certain operating standard isn't met due to failures, the operator has to pay fines to the government. The operator has the power to set their own fares, and the more they charge, the bigger profit they make from the whole project, so they try to charge as much as they can.
Is the MiniMetro an SK system? It looks a bit like one, like in Shanghai or the one that was built but never truly opened to the public in Paris Eastern suburbs (Noisy le Grand).
Nel 1962 a Perugia per salire in centro dalla stazione FS c'era solo un filobus, che percorreva gli stretti tornanti della strada. Meglio ora col minimetro!
A month ago I used a similar system in Pisa, called PisaMover. It is another small pod, airport-serving ridiculously priced gadgetbahn. Would fit to this video very well. It seems it is Italians national trait to build such things 😄
Because in Alto Adige you can find the maker, a company that has a strange monopoly on such things. The case of Pisa is indicative: until 2012 you could get there by train with non additional charge. But then... Better in Florence, where the tram brings you directly to the airport.
@@epiculo2 Oh, thanks. Now I see it's Leitner AG, responsible for both Perugia's Minimetro and PisaMover :) Probably prices for the pod rides are aligned to what they do much more of: gondola lifts and chairlifts 😂
Minimetro in Perugia is basic but useful and effective, consider to buy single tickets if you are only 1 day in Perugia. The centre is very walkable.
I love these little trains. They almost look like something one might find in Japan. Molto bene!
I have tried both services and safe to say is that the Marconi Express is overall faster than the Minimetro, at the cost of being so much more expensive (they made it almost €4 more expensive than when they inaugurated it) and at times breaks down. In the latter case, it is still a €12.80 ticket for a replacement bus which is nowhere near as fast as there is a 20 miles/h (30 km/h) speed limit within Bologna.
The stop at Lazzaretto was built also because it is near the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Bologna for students, but they usually use bus service 35 instead
also had a similar experience with the replacement bus, it was also constantly held up by traffic and only ran every 45 minutes (ig there were maybe two busses in service) - therefore on the way back the uber for 10€ in total was the better option, especially since theres a special designated underground pickup area at bologna station right near the highspeed tracks:))
@@connectingwings7212 what you said is correct. The reason why there were probably only two buses on the replacement service was because most of the buses used on such replacements mainly work on route 944 which is another airport route that leaves you just outside the Maggiore Hospital in Bologna.
Besides, all buses regularly used on airport services are based in a depot in the east side of the city so it makes difficult to promptly activate a replacement bus.
I travel to Bologna often and indeed at times I get picked up from that underground Kiss and Ride space on the side of the high speed platforms
That's why I really hate Bologna Airport. When I'm not on my own, I usually just take a Taxi. 20€ can get you anywhere in the old town, while you have to pay 25€ just to get to the main station with two people. I also find the ride quality to be absolutely horrible. (Also, the Bologna airport is really bad as well, always overcrowded and really cramped). It would make sense to have and Park&Ride at Lazaretto, but they don't. I tried to park there once and it wasn't allowed for more than 10 minutes or so.
I imagine Lazzaretto will be a site for future redevelopment when Bologna grows in the near future. Lots of open space to do so.
@@simmo-dieredaktion1107 The airport will be under renovation for... a while. I hope things are much better when it's done later this decade.
Both are such beautiful cities!
Nice and full of information video, thank you for your great work! Just a thing that you might not know: the Lazzaretto stop of the Marconi Express is currently "in the middle of nothing", as you said, but - apart from being close to the Engineering department of the University of Bologna, as it was mentioned by another viewer - it has been conceived as the first step of a mass transit oriented urban development plan, given that they are building condos and service buildings around that stop, so that in the near future many more people will be using that stop. Which adds more perplexity to the small-sized units running on the line, already seeming undersized right now
That is good to know! Thanks
It seems that, at least in Europe, all public transport to airports is high priced, way above fares for similar distance, non-airport destinations.
10:46 🤔
🍑
Great video! The Minimetro looks really cool!
Oof, I do love me a good gadgetbahn. Great video! I enjoyed hearing about these, never heard of them before! Thanks for making a video about it! Also it's really fun hearing your accent switch whenever you pronounce names! :D
In Genova and Napoli there are others similar examples, funicolari and peoplemovers difficult to cathegorize...
The Pisamover is even more similar
The marconi express , apart from the problems u mentioned, also has another big flaw. The ride is very very unconfertable. Not like just a bit of bouncing, but actually leaning over a significant amount in turns and even on the straights. Its worse than some rollercoeasters. Combine this with the fact that its always jam packet with people and their luggage, means that you will be thrown around, potentially hitting other passengers with an elbow or a backpack. Also, it doesnt take you to the city center, but to the main train station, which is a 20 minute walk away from the city center. In general, the level of service provided for the outragoues price is abysmal. It also replaced a bus service that did the same route and was way less expensive and more confortable and had more capacity. Overall, considering it was opened recently, its practically a legal scam, a cash grab. Unfortunately, this is the trend with many airport rail connections. Exploiting travellers and tourists who often have no choice but to use the super expensive transit link or get a rental car. Orly had this with its Orlyval (luclkly it now has tram and metro links) Brussels has this with a ridicoulous 10 euro or more upcharge for a normal train to airport. Bologna has it with the Marconi express. Pisa (another regional italian airport) has it too. It also recently introduced a people mover system, with all the same flaws as the Marconi Express, however it is even worse because it doesnt simply replace a bus service, but they actually ripped out normal convetional train tracks for a stupid, expensive, low capacity, uncomfortable people mover. There were actual train services running right into the airport, like in many other italian cities (Leonardo Express as you mentioned), but now there is a Gadgetbahn.
Oh wow that is awful
Excellent video
Great video, nice presentation, very concise - love the analysis at the end.
Good job! I appreciate that you pronounced all the Italian names correctly: very professional. And since there are so many head shots, I couldn't help but notice your sensuous lips. OmG!
That was so cool Nathan 😎
just came across your channel, good work :)
Excelente 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Hello! I was born 30km south of Perugia, in Umbria, and I go to Perugia once or twice a month on average. From what I've heard from people and local uni students, everybody HATES the minimetro system, because it is very very very limited, it is very expensive to run, it has stupid opening times and it is the stations are the places where drug deals and crimes happens the most (Perugia being in the top 3 of all italian cities with the biggest drug problem) and it was first conceived just as a political stunt for the prior years elections, to elect the President of region Umbria. I don't have a strong opinion on it to be honest, because I last used it...when I was 11 maybe (so 2010). You definitely gained a subscriber with this video, I really hope you enjoyed my stunning region.
figuriamoci se non spuntava l'itagliota a sputare veleno su tutto!
@@intersezioni no, io sto riportando opinioni di altri e dati che possono interessare a chi non è del luogo.
@@raisedahell5165 Encomiabile il tuo intento di riportare opinioni di altri (solo negative però, mi raccomando) e dati così lusinghieri che fanno apparie Perugia una specie di Gotham City governata da politici corrotti. L'autore americano del video credo che ci sia trovato come a casa sua quandi ci è stato... Complimenti, continua così
@@giumas1693 I like it, it's frequent and cheap and the fact that it's close to the dealers saves me time
Awesomeness
roses are red, violets are blue,
trains, trams and buses come in all sorts of hue ;)
my playlist #2 is about transportaion
Perugia looks like a beautiful city. Greener than most cities in southern Europe.
Excellent video my friends 😊awesome 😮Greeting 👋🏻
1:14 neat turntable for being more for switching direction side than for turning the pod
5:37 oh a turntable allows for shunting pods to maintenance, unlike a turning loop! Cool
If you just wanna ride the Marconi Express, you can just buy a ticket to Lazzaretto for EUR 2,30 and not leave the station at the Airport. Lazzaretto has a parking lot, which a lot of people (both airport users and airport employees) use. The connection time is not unmatched, for example here in Geneva the train takes 6 minutes between the Airport and the city center.
Lots of airport trains are overpriced because they figure if you spent hundreds if not thousands on a plane ticket what's another ten or 15 bucks? The only problem is that eliminates another type of frequent user-airport employees. Unless they set up special ticketing and pricing for them (possible) the low wage employees that operate the security and check in lines, man the restaurants and stores, and clean the walkways and bathrooms will never pay thirty bucks round trip.
Yup. And if it was a normal train, you would pay at worse 1.5€ for the same distance l
4:47 best sign ever
12,80€ for the ticket to the airport? Last time I visited Bologna in 2022, it was only 2,70€! Unbelievable…
Yup. Especially when you consider that with 12€ you can travel 1 hour and half with regional trains.
You can go from bologna to rimini (a city on the sea) paying less then what you pay to go from bologna station to the airport...
That's weird, I don't remember how much we paid exactly, but I remember that a year earlier it already wasn't competitively priced with a taxi for 4 people needing to get to the city centre. With the uncomfortable ride and the deafeningly loud announcements on top of that I feel like it's not a good system at all
Last time I have used it: 17,90 euros high speed train from Florence to Bologna, 12,80 to get to the airport. Just to say.
GOOD JOB !!!!
This was a fun video to watch, and you stitched together the multiple days really well. I can see how your videography and presentation is continuing to get stronger as well.
Are you back in the U.S. now, or still adventuring around the globe?
Thanks!! I am back in the US now but there are still a few international videos I need to edit!
@@nathantransitjhow many Languages can you speak?
@@cameronsfunworld8123 Two fluently: English and Portuguese.
There:s also a people mover between the train station and the airport, in Pisa, Tuscany.
I've taken the Minimetro several times and it seems the speed varies, seemingly by weekday vs. weekend, but I'm not sure.
If you have the chance again, have a look at Venezia people mover! :D
WHY AM I WATCHING THIS NOW??????? 😭 I was just in both Bologna AND Perugia a couple of weeks ago
7:20 is that not the same form factor monorail as Jacksonville FL's? I heard Jacksonville wants to replace its guideways' beams with pavement for autonomous bus-pods but now it seems this kind of monorail isn't obsolete 🤮
I think there must be a law in the EU about ticket fares for public transport going to an airport, because it's also very expensive to go to Charles-De-Gaulle via RER B and Orly via line 14 in France
I don't know about such a law, however I can explain why the Marconi Express and Pisa Mover are so expensive: they were built with project financing contracts. Basically the local government makes a deal with a private company, granting them permission to build a piece of infrastructure: the company pays for construction, but is then allowed to keep almost all of the earnings for a number of years. In some cases, if a minimum profit is not met, the local government has to pay the difference to the operating company, but if a certain operating standard isn't met due to failures, the operator has to pay fines to the government.
The operator has the power to set their own fares, and the more they charge, the bigger profit they make from the whole project, so they try to charge as much as they can.
Try the Dorfbahn Serfaus. It's weird in so many aspects.
Is the MiniMetro an SK system?
It looks a bit like one, like in Shanghai or the one that was built but never truly opened to the public in Paris Eastern suburbs (Noisy le Grand).
The producer of Minimetro system is Italian company Leitner, specialized in cableway systems.
@@urbanfile3861 Did Leitner bought the SK System or the SK company?
Because it really looks like the SK traveling pod system.
Turning around the pods is a very odd choice. It adds two bottlenecks at once: minimum headways and maximum length.
good video as always, are you back in the DMV?
Thanks! Yes, I’m back!
View? Try Circular Quay station in Sydney.
😅👍
Suprised you did not add the one in Pisa to the list.
Well I only went to the Gadgetbahns in the cities I was already going to visit.
Nel 1962 a Perugia per salire in centro dalla stazione FS c'era solo un filobus, che percorreva gli stretti tornanti della strada.
Meglio ora col minimetro!
Missing your videos! Hope all is well.
Hi! Yes, everything is fine. I’m just taking an extended break. I hope to be back by the end of the year.
slight correction on pronunciation: "Minimetro" is pronounced "Minimetrò"
This gives me twilight Town vivbes
Try Pisa people mover from Pisa’s central station to airport
So... not just Morgantown, West Virginia...
Are these rubber tired systems?
Minimetro is a cable propulsed system, like San Francisco cablecars so to say.
@@berthuizing1785 The system still needs wheels (or air cushions). In the case of Perugia, they have rubber tyres.
It's soooo Italian to close this early
And?
Pisa Mover is faster airport train than Marconi Express
Because airport is way closer
A month ago I used a similar system in Pisa, called PisaMover. It is another small pod, airport-serving ridiculously priced gadgetbahn. Would fit to this video very well. It seems it is Italians national trait to build such things 😄
Yes! Unfortunately I didn’t visit Pisa while I was there :(
Because in Alto Adige you can find the maker, a company that has a strange monopoly on such things. The case of Pisa is indicative: until 2012 you could get there by train with non additional charge. But then... Better in Florence, where the tram brings you directly to the airport.
@@epiculo2 Oh, thanks. Now I see it's Leitner AG, responsible for both Perugia's Minimetro and PisaMover :) Probably prices for the pod rides are aligned to what they do much more of: gondola lifts and chairlifts 😂
Italians have cities that are there since Roman times or even earlier, so the less traffic in the historical centers, the better
@@alessandrom7181 So you think closing these systems at 9 pm it helps?
Did you realize that "Bahn" is a german word?
So?
macaroni express
Is that a jock?
@@frederick06bigbrain48No, he's being Sirius
How to ruin a city