The first testing of a regular public transportation service took place in 1881 when the first
Queen Margherita vaporetto was used for transport along the
Grand Canal. The service was then acquired by the French company, the Compagnie des Bateaux Omnibus, which operated eight steamers until 1890. It was then replaced by the Società Veneta Lagunare, who subsequently extended the line by offering routes towards the mainland. In 1903, the
Municipality of Venice approved the direct management of the mainland services to ACNI (Azienda Comunale per la Navigazione Interna) the then ACNIL, which began its operation in 1904. With the opening of the
Ponte della Libertà in 1933, and the newly constructed car terminal in
Piazzale Roma, ACNIL extended its management to supervising over the
Venice-Mestre section, while the Società Anonima Tramvie of Mestre managed the remaining areas. In 1941, ACNIL was given clearance to directly manage the land transportation on the
Lido Island. This happened following the cessation of the tram service by the Compagnia Italiana Grandi Alberghi (CIGA) who managed the island up until that point. During
World War II, a large part of the fleet of boats was used by the
Italian Army and the
Navy for military practice purposes and by the end of the War, many of the vessels were found sunken or seriously damaged. Following this, a program aimed at repairing and replacing the boats as well as updating the ancillary parts of the service (landing points,
piers and
pontoons) was put into place. In 1965, ACNIL acquired the transport service of
Mestre and the mainland, taking over from Società Filovie Mestre. In 1966, the
trolleybuses were phased out and the entire fleet was replaced with buses. On 1 October 1978, the Company of the Venetian Transport Consortium (ACTV) was founded. In 1996, a night bus service was introduced which replaced the routes taken by the regular buses. ACTV's decision-making processes in awarding public transport service contracts in Mestre were challenged by several transport companies bidding in 2002, who were concerned that some of the evaluation sub-criteria were weighted by ACTV's evaluators after the receipt of
tenders. The case was referred to the
European Court of Justice, whose ruling issued in 2004 laid down guidance on fair methods for attaching weightings to evaluation criteria and sub-criteria after the publication of contract documents. In 2006, the ACTV corporate offices were transferred to
Tronchetto. During the
COVID-19 pandemic in Italy, the ACTV was forced to cut services considerably, particularly the vaporetti. ==Network==