The new Terzo Valico (Third Pass) is primarily aimed at improving the links from the Ligurian port system with the main railways in Northern Italy and the rest of Europe, in line with the strategies announced in the EU White Paper on Transport: with the transfer from road to rail by 2030 of 30% of freight traffic being transported over 300 km, and 50% by 2050, with environmental, security and economic advantages.
The Terzo Valico will mean that the current obstacles to rail transport between Genoa, Milan and Turin can be overcome.
Located in the middle of the Alps, and the lowest of the Alpine passes (1,371 metres above sea level), the Brenner pass has always been a crucially-important transport corridor for Europe. The pass now takes a third of all traffic that crosses the Alps.
The current Brenner railway line has now reached a high level of saturation and there is also great pressure from local groups and government to transfer onto rail the heavy traffic which currently mainly circulates by road along the Brenner motorway, with a significant impact in terms of atmospheric and noise pollution.
Turin-Lyon is a railway line for freight and passengers located in the heart of the Mediterranean Corridor (of the TEN-T trans-European network).
It connects the Iberian Peninsula to Eastern Europe, passing through Italy with the Turin–Trieste route. Central to the new line is the cross-border section that, at 65 kilometres-long, goes from Susa to Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne, in France, and crosses the Alps thanks to the Mont Cenis tunnel.
Urgent extraordinary maintenance work that could not be delayed made it necessary to close the bridge on 14 September 2018.
The two-year work plan set out by Rete Ferroviaria Italiana (FS Italiane Group) involves both the road surface and the railway itself.
The plan was presented in the meeting held on 9 October 2018 – which was attended by the Minister Danilo Toninelli, and parliamentarians from the provinces of Bergamo and Lecco, the Region of Lombardy, the presidents of the provinces and the mayors of the municipalities involved.
During the meeting, the FS executives gave a detailed explanation of the work undertaken to deal with the emergency and the timeframe for work to start.