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Issue 4 2011 / 4 August 2011 /
My last contribution to European Railway Review was back in Issue 4 2008, when I was interviewed about the then current status and view of high-speed operations in Italy. Since then Italy has changed a great deal where infrastructure is concerned.
The Italian High-Speed/High-Capacity (HS/HC) network
Today, Italy is a more modern and better connected country. The completion of the Turin–Milan–Rome–Naples–Salerno High- Speed/High-Capacity network in 2009 triggered a far-reaching revolution in the national transport sector and gave a strong boost to the economic, cultural and social life of the country, taking Italy to the highest European levels. With its 1,000km of dedicated tracks, the HS/HC network is the most important infrastructure to be built in Italy since the end of the Second World War, and has made it possible to make the railway benefit not only customers wishing to travel more quickly for work or leisure, but also for commuter and goods traffic. (more…)
Issue 4 2010 / 3 August 2010 /
The FS Group (Italian State Railways) is the largest company in Italy, which has helped boost the Country’s growth, thanks also to the recent launch of the high-speed service. The Group has successfully completed a process of internal reorganisation that has turned it into a modern and efficient reality, up-to-date and ready for the challenge of rail transport liberalisation. A radical transformation was completed in less than three years through a financial turnaround combined with the start up of the high-speed service and fleet renewal. Let’s analyse the facts point-by-point. (more…)
Issue 4 2010 / 3 August 2010 /
NTV, the first Italian private high-speed operator, will start commercial service in September 2011. We officially announced the kick-off date in a press conference we held in Rome at the end of May 2010. We therefore have 15 months of tough work ahead to complete the necessary steps to ultimate the preparation phase of our project.
It’s not easy, but we’re very excited by this fascinating challenge and we feel confident we’ll respect this strict time schedule. Or philosophy can be summarised by our brand new slogan, chosen by our Marketing Division: ‘Italo, il tuo treno’ (‘Italo, your train’). With this claim we’d like to underline that Italo is conceived for the needs of every kind of traveller. The slogan is also the welcome message of the new NTV site (www.ntvspa.it). But to keep this promise we have to work hard every day on each field we’re engaged in. (more…)
Issue 6 2009, Past issues / 12 December 2009 /
The North Access Section to the Brenner Tunnel is particularly important to rail transport within Europe as part of the TEN 1 – Axis Berlin-Palermo in a north-south direction and as the main east-west traffic artery in the junction with the Lower Inn rail link. Security, in particular, is a topic with a crucial role to play in the design and construction of the railway engineering infrastructure, due to its complexity and tight timeframe.
The railway engineering infrastructure in the Lower Inn (Tirol) Valley consists of the 41km-long Kundl/Radfeld-Baumkirchen section, which is mainly of new double track construction. The underground sections are led through a single main tunnel tube. This length of line is particularly notable for its high proportion of tunnel works, with a total of 34km double track tunnel designed for a maximum operating speed of 250km/h. The modernisation of the whole route has the main aim of considerably speeding up and increasing the capacity for transporting people and goods between northern Europe and Italy. (more…)
Rail industry news / 9 December 2009 /
ITALY: Celebrations were held in Milano on December 5 to mark the completion of the final sections of the north-south high speed rail corridor, which opens for revenue service with the timetable change on December 13.
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Issue 4 2009, Past issues / 21 July 2009 /
In an interview for European Railway Review, Mr. Moretti gives his outlook on the European railways situation and also provides details of the important Florence to Bologna high-speed line, due to open in December 2009.
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Issue 4 2008, Past issues / 1 August 2008 /
Michele Mario Elia, Chief Executive Officer of RFI – the Italian Railway Network company, and wholly owned subsidiary of Ferrovie dello Stato SpA since September 2006, is a railway veteran who knows how to combine hard work with good humour. In an interview for European Railway Review, Mr. Elia discusses his current work status and a view of high-speed operations. (more…)
Issue 4 2008, Past issues / 1 August 2008 /
Vincenzo Soprano is Chief Executive Officer of Trenitalia – the Italian Railway Transport company, and wholly owned subsidiary of Ferrovie dello Stato SpA since September 2006. Speaking for European Railway Review, Mr. Soprano describes the situation of Trenitalia and general railway transport in Italy.
Closing the 2006 financial year with losses of €2 billion, Trenitalia was in a highly critical situation and required immediate structural intervention.
We have revised the organisational model and introduced objectives of quality and efficiency for the National/International Passenger, Regional and Cargo Divisions, bringing responsibility, management and operational criteria back into each single business unit.
At the same time, we have analysed our market, separating the segments where both passenger and freight service may be undertaken profitably from those where the service may be provided only with public subsidies. We have introduced the distinction between ‘market service’ and ‘social service’ and have stressed that the social service is governed by a public contract – eventually resulting from a tender – to compensate the imbalance between income and expenditure; otherwise it may not be provided. (more…)
Issue 6 2007, Past issues / 26 November 2007 /
The construction of the new Lower Inn Valley Railway is one of Austria’s largest infrastructure projects. By 2012, the first section of the Northern feeder line to the Brenner base tunnel will be constructed on a length of ca. 40 kilometres.
The roots of today’s rail development projects through the Brenner mountain with its Northern and Southern feeder lines can be traced back to the budding public awareness of the environment in the 70s and 80s of the last century as well as the ‘success’ of the new traffic routes at that time. A few years after its completion, the new Brenner motorway showed traffic development exceeding all prognoses of traffic planning. In transport policy terms it became quite clear that, in the long term, neither the industry nor the abutters would accept the continuously increasing road traffic, the related environmental pollution and the more and more frequent quality losses. Though the existing Lower Inn Valley Railway, which began operating in 1858, had been continuously modernised, it was evident that it would reach its capacity limit sooner or later. Even today, there is no synchronised passenger suburban rail service between Innsbruck and Kufstein. (more…)
Issue 4 2007, Past issues / 30 July 2007 /
What do bananas, undressed timber and pasta all have in common? They are all travelling increasingly by rail thanks to the new rake offers added to SBB Cargo’s international wagonload services.
Over the past few years, the North-South corridor between Germany and Italy has developed into a showpiece for the liberalised railfreight market. Rail traffic between the major North Sea ports, the industrial regions of Germany, Switzerland and the economic centres of northern Italy has become brisk, bringing much-needed relief to the region’s overloaded roads. And this boom is due in no small part to Switzerland’s railfreight operator. SBB Cargo is constantly expanding its offering in its northern and southern neighbours, and is thus continuously increasing its traffic volumes all along this important North-South corridor. (more…)
Issue 4 2007, Past issues / 30 July 2007 /
Ferrovie dello Stato’s business plan for 2007-2011 was approved by the Government on 4 May 2007. It is a development plan, a turning point and a real revolution from a quality point of view, with the aim of re-launching the Group on the domestic and European market and turning it into one of the major players in a competition which is becoming tougher every day.
A key element of the Plan is the traffic growth, which we estimate to be around 34% for regional transport, 14% for medium/long-distance journeys and 19% for freight transport.
These are significant figures, which are supported from the start of 2010 by the completion of the new Turin – Milan – Naples High-Speed/High Capacity line – a project with a high technological content, which is absolutely essential if we are to meet the challenges in the Italian transport sector over the coming years. (more…)
Issue 6 2006, Past issues / 28 November 2006 /
The Italian transport system is strongly unbalanced in favour of the road and motorway network. Giovanni Costa, Responsible for the High-Speed/High-Capacity Net Project of the Financial Division of RFI, explained to the European Railway Review that the constant growing demand for the movement of persons and freight is fulfilled increasingly by private transport.
The environmental, social and economic costs of this imbalance are obvious: traffic, pollution, a high accident rate and penalisation of the production and distribution system.
According to the data of Ministero delle Infrastrutture e dei Trasporti in 2003-2004, just 5.9% of passengers and 16.5% of freight are transported by rail, compared to 93% and 64% respectively by road. This situation can punish Italy in terms of both internal resources and its relationship with other European countries, which are increasingly inclined to limit road transit of heavy vehicles and to promote rail transport. Upgrading and improving the available railway service is therefore an essential objective for redressing this situation.
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