No, not literally! ATAC is the Roman equivalent of Milan’s public transport company – ATM.  Like ATM, whose site I talked about in my ‘A useful site, almost – ATM Milan‘ post, ATAC also has a site which allows you to calculate routes around Italy’s capital.

Despite my slightly disparaging comments and owning to my knowledge of Italian, I often use Milan’s ATM site to find out how to get to where I want, so the Roman system should also prove helpful.

You can try out the service by visiting the ATAC site and clicking on the little Union Jack flag in the at the base of the header on the right.

You can even set the date and time of your journey, which means things like summer timetables should be taken into account.

Not sure what ‘private’ and ‘public means’ means.  Maybe if you flag ‘private’ a helicopter will be summoned just for you!  Fun, but probably more costly than a simple bus ticket!

Stop reading, start speaking

Stop translating in your head and start speaking Italian for real with the only audio course that prompt you to speak.

SEE HOW IT WORKS

Route planning options include:

• The quickest with (With what? – possibly refers to the options above)
• few transfers (Fewest transfers?)
• few short walks (Fewest short walks – presumably from one stop to another)

Then just choose your point of origin and your destination, hit the ‘Calculate’ button, and see what happens.

The English language is improving, as on the date I wrote this initially, the English language section of the ATAC site was a bit of a mix between Italian and English, now, it’s all in ‘just about’ English.

Let me know how you get on, or if you find yourself going round in eternal circles in the Eternal City.

Happy travelling!

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