The impact of climate changes it is there for all to see even in Italy and the data on the acceleration of these phenomena are increasingly worrying. Landslides, floods, heat waves and frosts, fires and tornadoes; these are events that manifest themselves in a way extreme and now they concern every season.
To respond to such a climate challenge, which affects both living and non-living things the Italian FS Group thought to shelter one of his most precious possessions: i tracks where the trains run. The interventions decided are therefore actions of structural prevention more than just maintenance.
Together with Rete Ferroviaria Italiana (RFI), an investee company that manages the entire network, the company has planned an investment worth 120 million euros per year, until 2023. Investments that add up to the 500 million euros spent in the previous 5 years to guarantee resilient infrastructures and optimize the regularity of the service as well as safety during the transport of passengers and goods.
In Italy the national railway network extends for 17 thousand kilometers: just over half (55%) of the network runs in flat areas, but the remaining part is located in hilly and mountainous areas at greater hydrogeological risk: there are 3.700 kilometers of network located in areas at risk of flooding, while around 1.900 km are in landslide risk areas. In the 2011-2020 period, around 2.200 events (landslides and floods) were recorded which affected the railway network; of these, about two-thirds occurred in the period 2011-2015, despite the progressive increase in atmospheric events over the decade. In the 2016-2020 period, the events that had an impact on the network were less numerous thanks to the investments made, but their extent increased to the point that, despite being less frequent, they created more problems for railway traffic, with service interruptions and network damage.
Climate resilience is today a key factor in every transport network, especially in Italy where the fragility of the territory and meteorological events have always been a major issue. The program undertaken by the FS Group fully achieves three objectives: to improve thereliability of the service, strengthen the safety of circulation and reduce i Costs management.
The foresight of FS investments is confirmed by an official report, that of the Città Clima 2021 Observatory of Legambiente which describes a scenario in which, in the space of just ten years, "there have been 486 cases of flooding from heavy rains, 406 cases of stoppage of infrastructures from heavy rains with 83 days of stoppage for subways and urban trains, 308 events with damage caused by tornadoes, 134 events caused by river floods, 48 cases of damage caused by prolonged periods of drought and extreme temperatures, 41 cases of landslides caused by heavy rains and 18 cases of damage to historical heritage”.
Legambiente explains that there has been an in-depth analysis that concerns precisely “network resilience electricity and railways, created in collaboration with Terna, e-distribuzione, Italian Fs. In 2021 alone, for example, there were 14 damage events caused by exceptional hailstorms. From 2010 to today, due to bad weather, there have been 83 days of stops in underground and urban trains and 89 days of extensive outages on the networks electricity due to bad weather.
