Brescia, 5 October 2020
Cepav Due, the Eni High Speed Consortium, commences work on the Brescia East-Verona high-speed rail line with the inauguration of the Martina Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) with a 10-metre diameter, assembled ad hoc for the construction of the Galleria Lonato.
The Cepav Due consortium consists of Saipem (as the leader with 59%), Impresa Pizzarotti (holding around 27%) and the ICM Group (with about 14%), amongst the most significant and recognised companies in the infrastructure sector for Italy and internationally.
The ceremony, held at the Lonato del Garda (Brescia) worksite, was attended by Paola De Micheli - Minister of Infrastructure and Transport, Elisa De Berti - Councillor for Infrastructure of the Veneto Region, Claudia Terzi - Councillor for Infrastructure of the Lombardy Region, and the Mayors of the municipalities traversed by the HS/HC Brescia East-Verona line, accompanied by Franco Lombardi - President of Cepav Due, Stefano Cao - Chief Executive of Saipem, Michele Pizzarotti - Vice President of Impresa Pizzarotti and Gianfranco Simonetto - President of the ICM Group.
Also present were Gianfranco Battisti - Chief Executive Officer and General Director of Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane, together with the heads of the operating companies of the FS Italiane Group, Maurizio Gentile - Managing Director and General Manager of Rete Ferroviaria Italiana, and Aldo Isi - Chief Executive Officer and General Manager of Italferr.
The new HS/HC Brescia East-Verona railway line is one of the linchpins of the Core Mediterranean Corridor set to connect the ports of the south of Iberian Peninsula with the Ukrainian border, passing through southern France, Northern Italy and Slovenia, with a section in Croatia.
Mostly running alongside the A4 Milan-Venice motorway and the conventional railway line, the HS/HC Brescia East-Verona line crosses the Lombardy and Veneto Regions, 11 municipalities within the provinces of Brescia, Verona and Mantua (the latter only for road work purposes) and foresees for the construction of a railway track extending approximately 48 kilometres, including 2.2 kilometres for the “Verona Merci” interconnection linking the Verona-Brenner railway axis.
The project was commissioned by Rete Ferroviaria Italiana, whilst the High Surveillance and Directorate of the Works were entrusted to Italferr. Both companies are part of the FS Italiane Group.
The economic investment in the Brescia East-Verona functional lot, approved by the Inter-ministerial Committee for the Economic Planning, is 2,499 million euro whilst the quota assigned to Cepav Due is 2,160 million euro.
The completion of the Milan-Verona line, which has been in operation since 2007, the Milan- Treviglio line and, since 2016, the Treviglio-Brescia stretch also completed by Cepav Due, will reduce the interference between the various transport streams, rendering traffic smoother whilst increasing the capacity for traffic at the railway nodes of Brescia and Verona, with benefits on the regularity and punctuality of both long-distance and regional services as well as freight transport.