Florence HS Bypass

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The urban section of the new HS/HC line will stretch for approximately 9 km, 7 km of which will run underground through two parallel tunnels at an average depth of around 20 m below ground level, with two terminal sections at ground level: to the north between the Florence Castello and Florence Rifredi stations, and to the south near the Florence Campo di Marte station.

About halfway along the route, there are plans to build the new Belfiore HS station in the Belfiore–Macelli area, which will be dedicated to High-Speed rail services.

However, the construction of the Florence High-speed rail link and the Belfiore HS station necessitates a series of measures to improve access to the new HS station, consisting in the construction of:

a new Circondaria stop, to facilitate transfers between the HS rail network and the regional rail network;
a People Mover to link the new HS rail station with Santa Maria Novella, where passengers can transfer to the wider regional network and the local public transport system operating there, as well as providing access to the city centre

The advantages

Reduced journey times for HS services that currently stop at the Santa Maria Novella station;
Improved service regularity at the junction thanks to the separation of long-distance, regional and freight traffic;
Increased capacity along the Florence Rifredi – Florence Campo di Marte section and at Florence Santa Maria Novella;
Introduction of new services stopping at the Florence Belfiore HS station.

100 km/h maximum speed

8,35 total kilometres

2,735 mld € in investiment

Initiatives with the Territory

Work progress status

Following are the details of the progress of works on Florence HS Bypass.

Design
Since 2005
Permits
Since 2005
Tenders
Since 2006
Start of work
Since 2007
End of work
2028

Real-time excavation

The two underground tunnels will be built using special tunnel boring machines. These machines, technically called TBMs (Tunnel Boring Machines) will excavate alternating both tunnels starting from the south entrance, located at Campo di Marte, and ending between the Rifredi and Castello stations. At this stage, only one of the two machines - called IRIS - is active.

You can view the progress of the excavations through a weekly-updated map at www.passantefirenze.it.

Florence HS Bypass

Florence HS Bypass - Florence HS Bypass

Stages of progression: WORKS

Design end date: 2005 (1)
End date of the authorisation process: 2005
Date of tender publication: 2006 (2)
Start date of executive design and implementation: 2007
Start date of executive design bypass and Firenze Belfiore station: 2010 (3)
Work end date: 2028

(1) Updated in 2022

(2) A new tender was called in 2022 following the bankruptcy of the company Nodavia

(3) Works were interrupted in 2018 following the collapse of the company Nodavia and restarted in 2020 upon the takeover of Infrarail Firenze Srl, a special-purpose company set up and wholly owned by RFI

* Data being updated

Florence HS Bypass