When Rome recently reintroduced the traffic conductor's podium in the central Piazza Venezia it was welcomed back by nostalgic Romans, happy to see once again a traffic official conducting rush-hour transport from on high.

Together with the return of the iconic symbol of the capital came a novelty: the first woman traffic controller to stand atop the retractable platform. The new commander of Rome's Polizia Locale, Ugo Angeloni, has "decided to break the all-male tradition," writes Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.