A organizing authority of urban transport ( AOTU ) is a form of organizing Autorité of transport (AOT). The AOTU ensures the organization of the urban grid system on its territory, the Périmètre of urban transport (PTU). For that, the AOTU perceives the Versement transport (VT).

The types of legal status of the organizing authorities of urban transport are multiple. Traditionally, urban public transport was organized by the common , in particular in the south of France. The communal organizing authorities represented even more than 30% of the total of the AOTU until 1999. The inter-commune organizing authorities developed in the years 1970 with the creation of many intercommunity associations with single vocation (SIVU) having for single competence “the organization of the urban transport”. Between end of the year 1970 and 1999,20 to 30% of the AOTU were SIVU.

Today, following the law Chevènement (1999), the legal statuses of the AOTU are dominated by the communities of agglomeration (43%). The communities of communes and the urban communities count respectively for 12 and 5% of the total of the AOTU. The mixed trade-unions, in increase, account for 12% of the AOTU in 2004, while the SIVU (8%) and SIVOM (1%) appreciably decreased. Lastly, let us note that, always in 2004,18% of the AOTU are communes.

The organizing authority of urban transport delegates the exploitation of its network to an operator of transport. The contractual relations which associate the organizing authority of urban transport and the owner of the urban network are also varied. According to the GART, in 2004,91% of the networks are exploited in management delegated against 9% in direct management.