ACTV

ACTV (Azienda del Consorzio Trasporti Veneziano) is the public transport operator for Venice, and the company behind the city's famous vaporetti — the motorised waterbuses that, in a city without roads, do the job of an urban metro. It runs the scheduled boat network across the Venetian lagoon, alongside the mainland buses and trams of the wider province, as the main operating company of the AVM (Azienda Veneziana della Mobilità) group.

The vaporetto network

ACTV's waterbuses run the length of the Grand Canal and ring the historic centre, then fan out across the lagoon to the islands — Murano, Burano, Torcello, the Lido, Giudecca and Sant'Erasmo. Services run from early morning until late at night, and the busiest Grand Canal lines (such as Line 1 and Line 2) call every few minutes in season. Because Venice has no cars, these boats carry both residents going about daily life and the millions of visitors moving between St Mark's, the railway station at Ferrovia, the car terminal at Piazzale Roma and the outer islands.

Tickets and how it works

You don't book a vaporetto — you buy a time-based ticket (a single ride, or a 1-to-7-day tourist travel card) through Venezia Unica, at ACTV machines and kiosks or in the app, and validate it at the reader on the jetty before boarding. A single ticket allows unlimited transfers within a set time window, which makes the multi-day passes far better value if you plan to island-hop. ACTV is publicly owned and was founded on 1 October 1978, though scheduled steamboat service on the lagoon dates back to the 1880s.