For almost a hundred years, the telephone booth has been an icon in popular culture.  It was the changing room for Clark Kent’s transformation to Superman.  It was the negotiating room for spies and counterspies in films like North by Northwest.  And for American teens in the ‘60s it was a challenge to see how many bodies you could stuff into one.  The British red “telephone box” is recognized the world over.

The design of the telephone booth changed over time from a glass-enclosed booth to a partially enclosed one that could accommodate people with disabilities.  Many locations changed to phones mounted on kiosks; the relative lack of privacy and comfort discouraged lengthy calls, especially in high-demand areas like airports.  Probably the biggest change of all is the gradual disappearance of phone booths due to the proliferation of cell phones.  In 1999, there were approximately 2 million phone booths in the United States.  Only 5% remained in service by 2018.

But Italy has a different idea.  Instead of abandoning the telephone booth, the Tim Group, an Italian telecommunications company, along with its partner Urban Vision, has re-imagined it.  The new digital stations will provide a range of services – entertainment information, charging stations for smart phones, services for ticketing and making online payments, and free calls to national landline and mobile numbers.  Municipalities will be able to support their cultural, tourism, and institutional offerings with information on cinemas, theatres, museums, concerts, and sporting and other events, on how to buy tickets, choose a restaurant, book a taxi, check weather forecasts and public transport timetables, get traffic updates, and so on.  The new digital stations will also feature sensor applications that allow people with motor disabilities, language barriers or visual impairments to access information and services.

An important objective of the new digital station is to combat violence against women.  Through a “Women+” button, it will be possible to access in real time an operator to report and request assistance for women who feel threatened or were harmed.  There will also be video surveillance.  The initiative is part of the Tim Group’s broader ‘Equality Can’t Wait’ project to address the gender gap. The new cabins will be installed initially in Milan (around 450) and will then gradually arrive in 13 other Italian cities, for a total of around 2,500 cabins, compared to the 15 thousand old cabins currently being decommissioned. The first street telephone booth in Italy was installed in Piazza San Babila in Milan in February 1952. The metal and glass structure is a feature that remained almost unchanged over the following decades. Previously, public telephones were almost exclusively installed in Public Telephone Points (PTPs), or were housed in commercial establishments such as bars, newsstands, and restaurants.  To commemorate the first street telephone booth, the first new digital station will be installed in Piazza San Babila in 2024.