How is rail transport in Italy? Like last year and like the year before that: terrible. In our country little or nothing is invested and the results are completely inadequate. A disastrous picture to which we also add the impacts of extreme weather events with increasingly frequent delays and interruptions, the chronic gaps between the North and South of the country and cuts to interregional connections.
According to the data from the new Pendolaria report by Legambiente, the increase of 120 million foreseen in the 2025 budget bill for the National Transport Fund, which has been underfunded for years, is absolutely small. Rome, Naples and Milan are the most affected cities and among the worst lines in Italy. 7 new lines including Avellino-Benevento and Florence-Pisa.
In absolute values, national funding for rail and road transport went from around 6.2 billion euros in 2009 to 5.2 billion in 2024, but these amounts remain well below needs and represent a –36 % if we consider the inflation of the last 15 years.
In all of this, the bridge project over the Strait continues to drain huge public resources and the dramatic aspect, we read in the report, is that over 87% of the infrastructure allocations until 2038 will concern the Bridgeleaving chronic problems such as closed lines or services suspended for over a decade unresolved.
Transport and climate crisis, the worst lines in Italy
As if that weren’t enough, in addition to inadequate funding, the impacts of the climate crisis are also weighing on public transport. I am 203 extreme weather events which in Italy in the last 14 years – between 2010 and 2024 – have caused interruptions and delays to trains, metro and trams throughout Italy. Intense rain and flooding, landslides due to intense rainfall, record temperatures and strong gusts of wind have affected mobility in particular in Rome (with 36 events), Naples (12) and Milan (11).
According to the MIT Report “Climate change, infrastructure and mobility”, the damage to infrastructure and mobility caused by the climate crisis will increase by 2050 to around 5 billion euros per year and, in the absence of adaptation measures, would reach a value between 0.33% and 0.55% of Italian GDP by 2050.
The 12 worst lines in Italy
- the lines former Circumvesuviane
- there North Rome-Viterbo which in 2024 has view beyond 5 thousand trips cancelled
- there Milan-Mortara-Alessandria, which serves 19,000 people a day, and is characterized by frequent failures and delays
- there Catania-Caltagirone-Gela one of which, the Caltagirone-Niscemi-Gela route, has been suspended for 13 and a half years
- there Rome-Lido
- the network of South Eastern Railways
- The Turin Metropolitan Railway System
- there Avellino-Beneventowhere the electrification works were supposed to finish in 2021, but the deadline was postponed from year to year
- there Turin-Cuneo-Ventimiglia-Nicewith repeated and daily interruptions to the already poor service
- the network of Calabrian Railwayswhere the two Taurense lines (the Gioia Tauro – Palmi – Sinopoli and the Gioia Tauro – Cinquefrondi) were completely suspended in 2011 and are in a state of abandonment
- there Florence-Pisa
- there Vicenza-Schio
The South is still the first to be forgotten: here the rail transport situation remains critical: the average age of trains, equal to 17.5 years, is still higher than that of the North, where it has dropped to 9 years. Furthermore, the railway network of the South is still largely not electrified and there are several abandoned lines such as the Palermo-Trapani via Milo, closed since 2013, or the Caltagirone-Gela, closed since 2011 or those of the lines that lead from Gioia Tauro in Palmi and Cinquefrondi in Calabria, whose service has been suspended for 13 years.
Good news and good practices
However, there is no shortage of good news such as the opening of the lines:
Among the good practices, described by Legambiente in the report, a single subscription of 20 euros per month has been introduced in Valle d’Aosta, which covers the entire regional network. In Milan, the M4 line connects Linate airport to the city centre, avoiding 3.7 million car journeys per year. An integrated metropolitan transport system with unified season tickets for the entire Emilia-Romagna region has been implemented in Bologna.
