Rail freight in Italy set back in 2023, subsidies are key to remain afloat 28/02/24
< Back to listAuthor: Marco Raimondi
Rail freight in Italy set back in 2023, subsidies are key to remain afloat
The Italian rail freight sector had to deal with various hiccups throughout 2023 which led to a general drop across the whole industry. RailFreight.com had a chat with Giuseppe Rizzi, managing director of Italy’s largest rail freight association FerMerci to better understand this trend and the causes behind it. “There seems to be a lack of willingness to concretely boost rail freight, but we shall not forget that one train takes 50 trucks off the roads”, Rizzi highlighted.
During the past year, the rail freight industry in Italy experienced a decrease in the distance covered by freight trains throughout the country. Last year, the rail freight performance in Italy dropped from 53.4 million trains per kilometre to 51.7 million. Moreover, a drop in rail freight volumes was experienced by the majority of Italian ports, as data provided by FerMerci showed.
The association is pointing out the lack of concrete financial help from the Italian government, deemed necessary to keep the sector afloat and meet the goals set by the European Union. “With the EU Green Deal and the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RFF) the path has been set and cannot be changed”, Rizzi said, “but there still is an imbalance when it comes to subsidies for the rail sector, especially compared to the road”.
Floods, landslides, accidents and upgrade works
There have been three main factors causing the decrease recorded in 2023. First, the floods that hit northeastern Italy in May, which led to the Adriatic Line being closed for three weeks. In addition, rail infrastructure to cross the Alps has been largely unavailable since August because of an accident in the Gotthard Base Tunnel and a landslide along the Frejus Railway. These problems are likely to cause disruption for 2024 as well since the Gotthard Base Tunnel won’t fully reopen before summer 2024, the Frejus line might remain closed for the whole year, and floods are still plaguing different areas of Italy, especially Veneto and Tuscany.
However, Rizzi mentioned that another cause for this drop can be identified in the many construction sites launched all across the country’s rail infrastructure, which interrupt traffic along various lines. Italian railways are in fact undergoing major changes to meet the goals set by the European Union to boost the modal shift to rail. “This led to the number of trains remaining constant, but capacity has been reduced, mainly because of interruptions due to upgrade works”, Rizzi explained.
Financial imbalance with road sector persists
FerMerci brought forward a few proposals that would make rail freight more competitive with the road sector. First, they are asking for a 20 per cent increase in the Measure Supporting Rail Freight Transport (Norma Merci), which would amount to roughly 20 million euros. As Rizzi specified, the European Union already approved the dossier and RFI showed its willingness to implement it. The only remaining missing piece concerns financial aid from the government, which still needs to find and allocate the funds.
Additionally, the association also suggested the provision of one million euros every year aimed for rail shunting operations across Italian ports. “The Ministry did a good job on this one, but there was no unanimity within the port industry”, Rizzi added. As he pointed out, measures such as the ones mentioned do lead to an increase in the market share of the rail freight. The Norma Merci, for example, was introduced in 2015 and caused a yearly growth in trains per kilometre almost every year except for 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. There was a bit of stagnation between 2017 and 2018 as well as between 2021 and 2022.