Mercitalia Group: a new Padua - Bari - Catania "multi-supply-chain" service

Transporting essential goods (food & beverages, medical supplies, paper, plastic) during the COVID-19 emergency

Rome, 6 April 2020

Operating from 3 April, this new freight transport service provided by the Mercitalia Group (FS Italiane Group) connects the Padova Interporto to the terminals of Bari and Catania and vice-versa.

The first phase throughout the COVID-19 emergency involves transporting mainly essential goods (food & beverages, medical supplies, paper and plastic), to then aim towards intercepting all other EU goods currently at a standstill.

Three roundtrip connections will run each week, to be increased to six by the summer.

The new innovative “multi-supply-chain” service was devised by Mercitalia Rail—the Mercitalia Group transport company—to carry heavy, bulk and palletised goods, both in a conventional (via tanks, mobile vessels and containers) and intermodal manner (with P400 semi-trailers only through to Bari), with two business supply chains that usually travel separately.

Team work was fundamental in aggregating freight volumes amongst the Polo companies, in particular between the sub-holding Mercitalia Logistics and Mercitalia Intermodal, specialised in unaccompanied combined transport services.

Also necessary was the support of Mercitalia Shunting & Terminal in developing the manoeuvres within the terminals, where the convoys are composed to feed the various loading and unloading zones—the Conventional and Intermodal Terminal Areas.   

This new service consolidates the synergies between the various Polo Mercitalia companies, confirming the strategy for market positioning as the only interface for advanced logistics with a railway vocation.

In a period of great difficulty, with significant impact on numerous productive sectors and on the railway logistics for goods, a positive signal comes thanks to the FS Italiane Group with the work of the Polo Mercitalia.