Online priority table works. With the development of the new system in the Ministry of the Interior, thanks to the special working group created by the Chief of Police, Vittorio Pisani, the passport path seems to have been overcome and the normalization process has begun. At least judging from the data for April, the first month in which the trial of the preferential booking route for those who need the document within thirty days after the request, which began on March 5 for ten police stations, was extended to all provinces and police stations which will be fully covered today.
The number of printed passports increased from 218,443 in April 2023 to 301,674 in the same month of 2024 (+38.1%). Appointments on the regular agenda rose from 230,000 to 320,000, to which must be added the 30,000 taken from the priority table and the 4,500 with the form designated for those with an emergency within 15 days: a total of 354,500. A jump of 54 percent. If we continue at this rate – these are the forecasts of the Ministry of the Interior – in 2024 we will reach the record number of about 3.4 million printed passports, that is, 25% more than the 2.726 million in 2023 and almost double the 1.777 million in 2022 and 1.673 million in 2019 before Covid. According to Interior Ministry technicians, it is enough to meet demand, which shows no sign of abating, thanks to the strong recovery in international travel and the difficulties of issuing electronic identity cards.
Looking at the map of the 106 provinces analysed, the largest increase in the last month compared to April 2023 was achieved by Prato with +213% of passports printed (from 640 to 2004). Caserta (+173%, from 1762 to 4810), Barletta-Andrea-Trani (+156.6%, from 1015 to 2604) and Biella (+151.1%, from 454 to 1140) also stand out. Narrowing the field down to regional capitals only, Campobasso registered the largest improvement in percentage terms (+120.4%, from 447 to 985 passports printed), followed by Trento (+103.9%, from 1,618 to 3,299), and Venice (+ 73.5%, from 2,864). to 4,971) and Naples (+69.1%, from 8,362 to 14,146). The city of Bari, the black top of the Sole 24 Ore investigation on February 25, saw a 37.5% increase (from 3,313 to 4,554). On the other hand, Perugia is among the few cities that in April saw a decrease in the number of documents issued, from 3,814 to 3,372 (-11.6%), in line with the data calculated from January to April 30 (11,515 passports, compared to 12,944 passports ). In the first four months of 2023).
Umbria is one of the four regional capitals out of twenty in which there has been a decrease in documents since the beginning of the year compared to the first quarter of 2023: the others are Florence, where printed passports decreased by 2.9% (also in April there was -0.2%, Cagliari (-2.4%, while the increase last month was 13.3%) and Turin (-2%), where it grew instead in the period from January to April by 12.6% (from 11.631 to 13.102 in total). January to April, the number of documents issued has already reached 1.088 million, an increase of 19% compared to the first four months of 2023.
The acceleration appears particularly clear in some regional capitals. In Naples, the percentage reached 71.6%, with passports jumping from 33,227 in 2023 to 57,018 issued this year. In Venice, where documents issued since January amounted to 19,267, the growth was 44.8% compared to 13,302 in 2023. Milan improved by 28.2% with 76,164 passports printed since January, but in April alone the increase was 48.3% (from 14,237 to 21,119). . Rome’s total was also +21.9% in the first four months, from 78,486 to 95,663, with 29,779 printed in April alone (+38.6% compared to the same month in 2023).
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