Buses

ATAF is the local bus company in Florence - their ubiquitous orange buses are everywhere - some are big, some are small, some run on natural gas, and some run on electricity. From their website:

"ATAF, Azienda Trasporti Area Fiorentina, represents a consortium of nine municipalities: Bagno a Ripoli, Calenzano, Campi Bisenzio, Fiesole, Florence, Impruneta, Scandicci, Sesto Fiorentino, and Vaglia, that cover a total territorial surface area of 538 square km with a population of about 600,000 residents."

The Department of Tourism in Florence has a new bus and road map out to help people get in and out of Florence and the surrounding areas. Of course you have to get one at the tourist office, which sort of makes it a Catch-22 situation. Anyway - it has a ton of good info on it, like this little map below showing the locations of the bus stations near the train station:

And here are some important links for rail and bus transportation into and out of Florence and the surrounding area:

Trenitalia: http://www.trenitalia.com

Ataf: http://www.ataf.net

Sita: http://www.sitabus.it (Arezzo, San Gimignano, Siena, Volterra, The Mall)

Cap: http://www.capautolinee.it (Prato, I Gigli)

Lazzi: http://www.lazzi.it (Arezzo, Lucca, Montecatini Terme, Prato, Viareggio)

Piubus: http://www.piubus.it

Autolinee Toscane: http://www.autolineetoscane.it

Here is a map from Google showing roughly the same area:

The electric mini-buses that run in the city center had a radical change this year (2010) when more of the center was closed to traffic. The below map shows the updated routes: C1, C2, C3 & D (don't ask for the logic on that - "C" must mean center now... but why the bus on the other side is "D" and not "O", or why they didn't keep A, B, etc... who knows!).

You can also see the Tramvia Line 1 on this map.

The buses run Monday to Saturday, from 7 AM until 9 PM, every ten minutes, and 8:30 AM to 8:30 PM on holidays. I guess they don't run on Sundays - which I had not noticed before.