Beginning in 1996, the history of People Mover is a long one. It started with the definition of a possible lay-out included in the reorganization plan for three major areas of access to Venice: Piazzale Roma, Tronchetto and the ferry terminal.

After a long planning process and late work delivery, people mover was inaugurated on 19 December 2009 and it actually started service on 19 April 2010. People mover allows a fast (3 minutes) connection between Piazzale Roma and Tronchetto with an in-between stop in the area where the parking lot designed by Mauro Galantino will be realized.

The new public transportation service moves along a 857 metres long circuit which is completely above ground level. Each train will have a maximum capacity of 200 people with an hourly capacity of 3 thousand passengers. The initial estimated budget was €16 billion but due to unexpected works that became necessary during construction, the budget reached € 22 billion.

People mover is part of a broader project to reshape current access points to Venice’s historical centre, now still largely concentrated in Piazzale Roma. An extremely congested area, it proves absolutely inadequate to guarantee flow and parking to the massive amount of vehicles reaching it from the Mainland. Such reshaping project includes a series of actions: to improve and expand spaces and activities in Tronchetto, to build a multi-storey car park by the ferry terminal and a series of intermodal centres along the lagoon.

People mover was then conceived as a means to reduce traffic in Piazzale Roma by diverting it to Tronchetto and the ferry terminal, areas that are undergoing radical processes of physical and functional transformation.