At first glance, it may seem superflous or a complete waste of public funding the fact that gondoliers receive a subsidy from the local government.

However, it should be clear that this subsidy is not received by all the 400 od gondoliers, but only those of the traghetto who perform the public duty of transporting people from one side of the Grand Canal to the other.

The traghetti are under the direct management of the local city council who puts out to contract this public service to the gondoliers.

This mechanism helps us to understand that the eventual reduced or restricted hours of certain traghetti are due to the council orders and do not have anything to do with the individual traghetti, because it is the council who decides the hours that each traghetto should operate.

The subsidy received is proportionate to the hours in which the traghetto is operational.

For any eventual disservices, the citizen, in theory, can complain to the Council under whose responsibility this service falls.