FS is making a huge investment to renew the railway network: between now and 14,6 RFI (Rete Ferroviaria Italiana, Gruppo FS Italiane) will allocate 2025 billion euros for the Milan region. The project was presented in the capital in the presence of the Chief Executive Officer and General Manager of the FS Italiane Group, Gianfranco Battisti, the Chief Executive Officer and General Manager of Rete Ferroviaria Italiana Maurizio Gentile and the President of the Lombardy Region Attilio Fontana. The program includes in particular infrastructure upgrading interventions e upgrade technological, the suppression of 110 level crossings, the restyling of the stations and the maintenance of the Lombardy lines.
The benefits of which i commuters will be able to enjoy ranging from greater regularity to increased network reliability, through the improvement of intermodality and the reduction of intersections between road and rail, to then arrive, once the planned infrastructural upgrades have been completed, to a significant increase in the some of the busiest public transport lines in Lombardy.
On the front of upgrade technologicalnew signaling and train spacing systems will be progressively put into operation as early as this year, which will produce as immediate benefits an improvement both in the reliability of the lines and in the regularity of traffic: the new Multistation Computerized Central Equipment (ACC-M ) of the Bergamo – Rovato line (activation at the end of 2019), of the Voghera – Piacenza (2020), of the Carnate – Ponte San Pietro (2020), of the Romano – Brescia (2020), of the line for Domodossola (2022) and for Tortona (2024 ); new technologies in Gallarate (2022), in Milan Lambrate (2022) in Milan Porta Garibaldi (2022) and on the Chiasso – Monza (2021); the upgrade della Carnate – Monza (2021) and the new distancing system HD ERTMS to increase the capacity of the Milan hub (2022).
Among infrastructural interventions the upgrading of the Ponte San Pietro – Bergamo – Montello line, the doubling of the Codogno – Cremona – Mantua line and the completion of the Milan – Mortara line, the new railway connection with the Orio al Serio airport station, the upgrading of the Gallarate – Rho, the quadrupling of the Tortona – Voghera and Milano Rogoredo – Pavia, the speeding up of the Milano – Genova, as well as the construction of the Brescia – Verona high-speed railway and the planning process to start the construction of a second bridge in Paderno d'Adda .
They will be instead over 110, with an investment of over 170 million, the level crossings that will be closed by 2024, according to a path that also sees local and regional administrations at the forefront. Interventions that will improve the regularity of rail traffic and the safety of road traffic.
New life also for the stations, already undergoing radical transformations to increase functionality and decorum, break down architectural barriers, enhance public information systems and improve accessibility to the train. This is a broader redevelopment project of the railway yards which last year involved stations such as those of Bergamo, Brescia, Como S. Giovanni, Varese, Rho, Pioltello - Limito, Desenzano del Garda and which in 2019 will concern Codogno, Cremona and Romano, for an investment that between 2018 and 2022 will reach a total of 150 million euros.
They complete the picture maintenance interventions, which provide for over 1,6 million hours of ordinary maintenance per year to keep the Lombardy network efficient, the renewal of superstructure, electrification, signaling and telecommunications equipment, including the renewal of 170 km of tracks and replacing over 200 exchanges every year.
