Genoa Public Transport: Metro, Buses And AMT Tickets

Genoa is a coastal city in Liguria, north-west Italy, squeezed between the Ligurian Sea and the Apennine hills, and that shape is the single best explanation of how its transport works. The city runs lengthwise along the shore, climbs steeply uphill the moment you leave the water, and keeps its two main rail hubs, Genova Piazza Principe and Genova Brignole, roughly at either end of the centre. One operator, AMT Genova, runs the metro, the buses, two funiculars and a set of public lifts as a single network, and the fare structure rewards you for understanding it before you board. This page sets out what the AMT fare table, the metro map and the airport connection actually say, in the words the operator's own pages use.

Who Runs Genoa Public Transport And What Does It Cover?

Genoa public transport is a single AMT Genova network covering the metro, urban and metropolitan buses, the Zecca-Righi funicular, the Sant'Anna funicular and the city's public lifts, all on the same tickets. The metro alone is 7 km long with 8 stations from Brin to Brignole. Trains are absent from the network: Genoa has no tram lines, and regional trains are run separately by Trenitalia from Genova Piazza Principe and Genova Brignole.

AMT Genova publishes the whole fare structure on its own ticket pages, and the numbers there are the ones that matter. The network is unusual among Italian cities for how much of it goes vertically: the funiculars and the fourteen public lifts are fare-paying parts of the system, not curiosities, because the hills above the centre are steep enough that stairs are a genuine obstacle. The Zecca-Righi funicular and the Castelletto lift are the two pieces travellers meet first, and both take the same tickets as a bus.

The integration with the railway is real but limited. An AMT ticket does not put you on a Trenitalia train, and a Trenitalia ticket does not put you on a bus, unless you buy one of the two integrated products listed in the fare table below. Everything else, metro included, is AMT-only. For the geography of the rail side of the city, the Genoa train stations guide covers Principe and Brignole separately.

What Do AMT Tickets Cost In Genoa?

The AMT ordinary ticket costs 2.00 EUR and is valid 110 minutes on the whole Citta Metropolitana network, with unlimited changes within that window. The integrated AMT plus Trenitalia version costs 2.20 EUR, a 5-hour ticket costs 5.00 EUR, a carnet of eleven 110-minute tickets costs 20.00 EUR, and the Met Daily 24-hour ticket costs 10.00 EUR. A single lift or Sant'Anna funicular ride costs 1.20 EUR.

Those figures come from the AMT Genova fare pages, and they are the complete price list a visitor needs. The 110-minute validity is generous by the standards of a city you can cross end to end inside an hour, and it means a single ticket can carry a bus leg, a metro leg and a lift leg in one journey. The carnet is the product for a group or a longer stay, since eleven rides for 20.00 EUR works out below the single-ticket price per ride.

Where to buy matters as much as what to buy. The AMT ticket pages list the official app, SMS purchase, contactless ILA payment by card, ticket machines, retailers and Trenitalia offices as sales channels, so a ticket office queue is avoidable in the centre. The Met Daily deserves a paragraph of its own further down, because it is the only ordinary ticket that carries the airport bus, and that changes the arithmetic of an airport arrival completely.

Tickets for the sights are a separate purchase from tickets for the network. The Aquarium of Genoa sells its own dynamic-priced entry from 26.00 EUR for a fixed-date adult ticket, and the combined Aquarium, Biosfera and Bigo ticket starts from 37.00 EUR, per the Aquarium's own ticket page. A 2.00 EUR AMT ride gets you to the Porto Antico door; what happens inside is priced on a different page.

How Does The Genoa Metro Work?

The Genoa metro is a single line, 7 km long with 8 stations, running from Brin in the west to Brignole in the east: Brin, Dinegro, Principe, Darsena, San Giorgio, Sant'Agostino, De Ferrari, Brignole. It connects Genova Piazza Principe station, the old harbour area and Piazza De Ferrari, and it takes the same 2.00 EUR 110-minute ticket as every bus. Two further stations, Canepari and Martinez, are not open in October 2026.

For a visitor the line is close to ideal, because four of its eight stations sit on the classic sightseeing spine. Dinegro serves the terminal area, Principe sits at the main western rail station, San Giorgio and Sant'Agostino open onto the Porto Antico and the edge of the caruggi, De Ferrari marks the centre of the city at Piazza De Ferrari, and Brignole meets the eastern rail station. The whole strip between Principe and De Ferrari is a few minutes of riding.

The extension state of the line is worth one careful sentence. The stations Canepari and Martinez are not open in October 2026, with Canepari reported as targeted for June 2027 and Martinez for December 2028, and the operating metro remains the 8-station line above. The fuller story of the line, including the station-by-station detail, sits on the is there a metro in Genoa answer page.

For a day built around the harbour, the metro plus a short walk covers the whole Porto Antico stretch. The Aquarium of Genoa, the Bigo lift and the Galata Museo del Mare all sit in that corridor, and an Check availability link on the entry ticket settles the one booking worth making before you leave the house.

How Do You Get From Genoa Airport To The City Centre?

Genova Cristoforo Colombo airport connects to Genova Piazza Principe, De Ferrari and Genova Brignole by the Volabus service in about 30 minutes, and there is no separate Volabus fare: the service requires the 10.00 EUR Met Daily 24-hour ticket, which then covers the whole AMT network for 24 hours. A taxi from the airport to the centre is a fixed 25 EUR per car, 30 EUR for more than four people, plus 2 EUR at night and on holidays.

The Volabus rule is the one that catches arrivals out, so it deserves plain wording. There is no single-trip airport ticket in the AMT fare table. The Met Daily at 10.00 EUR is the product the airport page and the AMT Volabus page both name, and since it covers the full network including the metro, the buses, the funiculars and the lifts for 24 hours, an arrival ride effectively doubles as a day pass. Anyone landing, riding into town and then using the metro or a lift the same day has already spent the ticket.

The taxi comparison is fixed and published by the airport itself: 25 EUR per car to the centre, 30 EUR over four people, with a 2 EUR night and holiday supplement. Shared per-person rates also exist on the airport page, at 8 EUR per person to Brignole with a minimum of three, and 7 EUR per person to Principe with a minimum of three, or 6 EUR per person with a minimum of four. The full arrival picture, including the airlines serving the airport, is on the Genoa airport page, and the wider question of reaching the city at all is covered in how to get to Genoa.

What Are The Funiculars And Public Lifts In Genoa?

Genoa runs two funiculars and fourteen public lifts as fare-paying parts of the AMT network. The Zecca-Righi funicular runs daily from 06:40 to 24:00 with seven stations and about a 12-minute ride, and the Castelletto Levante lift climbs 57 m from Piazza Portello to the Spianata Castelletto, also daily 06:40 to 24:00. A single ride on a lift or on the Sant'Anna funicular costs 1.20 EUR.

The vertical network exists because the city is stacked. The Castelletto lift is the one to know for views, since it delivers you to the Spianata Castelletto terrace above the rooftops for the price of a bus ride, and the Zecca-Righi funicular does the same job for the Righi hillside with a longer climb. The AMT pages give the Zecca-Righi a service span of 06:40 to 24:00 daily, the same span as the Castelletto Levante lift, and a frequency in the region of every 15 to 20 minutes at peak times.

The Montegalletto lift, which serves the Castello d'Albertis area, runs a shorter day, roughly 07:10 to 19:50 on weekdays and 07:15 to 20:55 on holidays. The lifts take the 1.20 EUR single ride ticket, and they equally accept the ordinary 2.00 EUR ticket or the Met Daily, so a day passholder rides everything without a second thought. The Spianata Castelletto and the Genoa lifts and funiculars pages take the hillside story further.

Which AMT Ticket Should You Buy For Your Trip?

For a single journey with changes, buy the 2.00 EUR ordinary ticket and its 110 minutes. For a full day of riding, including an airport arrival, buy the 10.00 EUR Met Daily 24-hour ticket. For several days, the Met Daily can also be bought in a web carnet of five, with the price to be checked on the official site. A carnet of eleven ordinary tickets at 20.00 EUR suits groups.

The decision is mostly a matter of counting rides. Three or more ordinary journeys in a day, at 2.00 EUR each, reach 6.00 EUR; four reach the price of nothing else in the table, and five exceed half the Met Daily, at which point the 24-hour product with the airport service included wins on paper. The AMT page also lists multi-person and promotional variants of the Met Daily, such as a 2-day event promotion at 15.00 EUR, so the live page is the place to check what is on sale for your dates.

One border case is worth naming. The Genoa Museum Card is a museum product, not a transport product, and only its "+bus" variants include AMT transport at all; the ordinary card covers museums alone, and no variant carries Volabus, Navebus or trains. The Genova Museum Card page lays out the 2026 rates, 24 EUR for 24 hours and 45 EUR for 48 hours, and the 28 museums the card opens.

How Do You Use Genoa Public Transport For Day Trips?

The AMT network itself stays inside the city, but two day-trip levers grow out of it: the Met Daily includes AMT line 782 from Santa Margherita Ligure to Portofino, and integrated AMT plus Trenitalia tickets bridge bus and regional train for 2.20 EUR. For the Cinque Terre, the coast east of Genoa and Portofino, Trenitalia regional trains from Genova Piazza Principe and Genova Brignole are the spine, not AMT.

Line 782 is the detail that surprises people. The AMT Volabus page lists the Santa Margherita Ligure to Portofino line as included in the Met Daily's coverage, so a 10.00 EUR day ticket technically stretches from a Genoa bus stop to the Portofino quay, with a regional train leg bought separately. That makes the Met Daily a genuine Riviera day-trip tool, not just a city pass. The Genoa to Portofino and Genoa to the Cinque Terre pages carry the boat and train alternatives in full.

West along the coast, the logic repeats. Camogli sits about 18 km from Piazza De Ferrari in a straight line, Portofino about 25 km, the Cinque Terre about 67 km, and the regional railway follows the shore through all of them. Boats add a second layer: the Golfo Paradiso Two Gulfs tour runs from Genoa Porto Antico on listed dates from March 2026, calling at Camogli, San Fruttuoso and Portofino, with crossings of about 30 minutes between the eastern stops. Fares for that tour are reported at about 29 EUR for the full day and 21 to 26 EUR for a half day.

Is Genoa Public Transport Good For Cruise Passengers?

Yes, for the centre: the cruise terminals sit within the AMT corridor, the metro stations Principe, San Giorgio, Sant'Agostino and De Ferrari are all close to the port and the old town, and a 2.00 EUR ticket covers 110 minutes of riding. The port's own figures list 2.4 million cruise passengers a year across the Ponte dei Mille and Andrea Doria terminals, and the metre-gauge geography means the centre needs no vehicle at all.

The practical shape of a port day is short. The Stazioni Marittime terminals and the Porto Antico sit inside the same western strip of shore, the caruggi and Piazza De Ferrari are a metro stop or a walk from it, and the lifts put the viewpoints within a 1.20 EUR ride. The Genoa cruise port and Genoa cruise port day pages build the full day-by-day plans; the transport point is simply that nothing in the central itinerary requires more than one or two validated tickets.

Shore-excursion products handle the rest of the coast for passengers who want it packaged. A boat excursion to Camogli and back, a private guide for the old town, or a combined Aquarium ticket are the three that pair most naturally with a limited number of hours alongside, and each renders its own live price from the listing rather than from a printed figure here.

What Should You Know Before Riding Buses In Genoa?

Three habits cover almost everything: validate the ticket when you board, because the 110-minute clock starts at validation, not at purchase; keep the ticket until the ride ends, since it is the proof inspectors read; and check the AMT app or a ticket machine for the route before setting out, because the hillside streets make detours common. Contactless ILA payment by card is listed as an alternative to paper tickets on the AMT pages.

The old town deserves a specific warning that has nothing to do with tickets. The caruggi are narrow, and bus routes sit on the main arteries around the medieval core rather than through it, so the old town caruggi and the main sights on Via Garibaldi are reached on foot from a stop on the edge. The metro's De Ferrari and San Giorgio stations are the two that put you closest to that edge from either direction.

Timetables and service spans on this page come from the AMT fare and service pages, and those are the reference to check against your own dates, because event days and seasonal adjustments change the details. What does not change is the fare architecture: one network, one ordinary ticket, one day pass that includes the airport bus, and a set of vertical machines that treat a hillside as a schedule problem already solved.

Does Weather Affect Genoa Public Transport?

Rain matters more than temperature in Genoa, and the official 1971-2000 climate normals for Genoa Sestri show why: October carries 171.3 mm of rain on average, the highest monthly figure of the year, while July carries 24.2 mm, the lowest. The Strada Nuova museums close on red weather alerts, and Staglieno closes on weather alerts too, so a red-alert day reaches beyond transport into the sights themselves.

The same normals give the seasonal background to a transport plan. Mean daily highs run from 11.5 C in January to 27.7 C in August, with mean lows from 5.5 C in January to 21.0 C in August, and the yearly rain total is 1079.2 mm. September and October are the wet pair, at 136.4 mm and 171.3 mm, which is exactly when lift queues move indoors and the metro earns its keep. The Genoa weather and best time to visit Genoa pages translate the table into planning advice.

None of this stops the network. The metro is underground, the lifts are enclosed, and the funiculars run their published spans regardless of the season; the red-alert rule affects museum doors, not turnstiles. What weather changes is which parts of a Genoa day feel pleasant on foot, and the city's transport is built so that the answer can always be "the part with a roof".

How Does Genoa Public Transport Compare With Driving?

Driving in Genoa works against limited-traffic zones and hills: the ZTL covers the Centro Storico and other central zones around the clock under the municipal disciplinare, parking near the centre is scarce, and Portofino's ZTL admits residents and authorised vehicles only, with non-residents directed to paid car-park silos at about 8 EUR per hour. AMT plus regional trains reach everything a visitor needs without a car.

The comparison is not close for the centre. A 2.00 EUR ticket and a 7 km metro line cover the corridor where the sights sit, and the hills that defeat walkers are served by lifts at 1.20 EUR a ride. A car adds a ZTL question to every destination, and the eastern Riviera compounds it: Portofino is closed to non-resident traffic at the final approach, so the train-plus-782-bus or the boat are the two sequences that end at the harbour rather than at a silo gate. The Genoa parking and driving page carries the ZTL detail, and Genoa car rental covers the cases where a car still makes sense.

Ferries finish the picture for the long hops. The port runs 2.6 million ferry passengers a year to Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily, Barcelona and Tunis from the Calata Chiappella, Ponte Caracciolo and Ponte Colombo terminals, which is a different scale of sea transport from the coastal boats, and the Genoa ferries page lists the operators and routes.

Common Questions About Genoa Public Transport

The fare table, the metro map and the airport rule are the three things worth remembering, and the Genoa Travel Guide homepage collects the rest of what the city offers, from the Aquarium to the hills above it, on one page.