UN BUS CHIAMATO SITA

In many Italian regions in which SITA operates, or has operated, those who have to make a bus journey simply say "I'm going to take SITA".

And this was at least until 1990, the year of publication of this valuable volume, which tells us so much about the evolution and changes in transport in Italy.

The evolution of the territory and the demand for transport, above all the uncontainable use of the private car, have attenuated the indispensability of regular bus services and worsened their economic situation.

The SITA company was founded in Turin in 1912 on the initiative of Fiat and other shareholders.

In the years between the two wars, the company began to spread throughout Italy, initially providing transport services in three regions (Piedmont, Tuscany and Basilicata).

During the years of Fascism, with the regime's autarkic policy, Fiat directed its capital towards road transport and mass tourism: SITA bought up some transport companies and expanded into the Gran Turismo sector.

After the downsizing of tourism during the Second World War, the post-war years were years of reconstruction for the company and a return to mass tourism, which was challenged in the 1960s with the boom in private motoring.

Fiat then began a progressive withdrawal from the trucking sector, which ended in 1987 with the sale of the company to Sogin s.r.l., a holding company owned by the Puglia-based Vinella family, which undertook a vast improvement and modernization project involving the purchase of new equipment.

The long and complex history of this company and its links with other companies operating in the transport sector over time end here.

The author, Nicola Cefaratti, with careful and rigorous research, has used various sources of information from inside and outside SITA, accompanied by exceptional photographic documentation, starting from the early years, up to the period of maximum extension of the network, and 1990, the year of publication.

The final chapter, Il materiale rotabile nel tempo, identifies the technical characteristics of the many types of Fiat vehicles used by SITA in the first 78 years of its existence, and data on the size of the fleet. Finally, and equally important, the bibliographical sources used.