OUR HISTORY

Established at the beginning of the last century, the Ferrovie Luganesi SA (FLP) was meant to promote the development of the region and to facilitate the communications between the city of Lugano and its neighbourhood.

The company, which received the Federal Concession, was founded with the help of some local personalities: Agostino and Giuseppe Soldati, Luigi Balestra and the mayor of Ponte Tresa, Pietro Tognetti. The construction work was completed in just 18 months and the railway became operational on the 5th of June 1912.

Immediately, the railway gave proof of being an important element of development. However, until the 1950s, it suffered a series of financial difficulties, because of the two World Wars and the general economic crises. At a later stage, thanks mainly to the introduction of laws that assured financing and deficit cover, the company was able to completely renovate its infrastructures. This was also possible due to the encouraging development of passenger traffic, at a time, when other regional railway lines were being forced to close down. From the 1970s, with the introduction of the clock-face schedule, the modernization of the trains and the addition of automatic ticket machines, the railway became more similar to a city-railway connection. Its relevance grew constantly, thanks also to better coordination with other means of transport, above all to the integration of postbus stops at the train stations of Ponte Tresa, Magliaso, Agno and Bioggio-Molinazzo.
In the year 2000, the introduction of a clock-face schedule with trains every 15 minutes during workdays and the purchase of passenger carriages with a lower floor that offered greater transportation capacity and easier access to the vehicles, led to a considerable improvement of the services offered. Currently, a transformation into a tramline servicing the entire area of Lugano, with terminal stations in Manno, Cornaredo and the Scairolo plain, is being studied.

100 YEARS IN OVERVIEW

THE SOCIETY