The Italian rail freight sector is in a crisis that has been ongoing for the past couple of years. The impact of this setback can also be felt in the country’s ports, which have generally been losing rail volumes since 2022.
“Even if every year the loss is relatively small, consecutive negative years add up and have created a significant impact”, said Giuseppe Rizzi, general manager of the Italian industry association Fermerci. Between 2022 and 2024, the number trains to and from Italian ports dropped by 6 per cent, while in trains-kilometre the recorded reduction was 5 per cent.
More specifically, the number of freight trains in Italian ports decreased by almost 3,000 units, from 48,278 to 45,288, according to data from the country’s infrastructure manager Rete Ferroviaria Italiana (RFI). The current numbers are even lower than the 2021 levels, which still saw over 46,600 trains being deployed.
Infrastructure works continue to be a challenge
When analysing individual ports, the trend is not the same. Among the major ones, Trieste saw 13 per cent fewer freight trains, with a similar trend in the nearby port area of Monfalcone. For the port of Genoa, data from RFI shows a decrease in both the Voltri and Marittima stations. For both Trieste and Genoa, the loss of traffic has been ongoing since 2022.
Planned infrastructure upgrades are expected to reverse the trend and put more cargo on the railway from both ports. However, many of the projects will not be ready in the immediate future and their construction is currently disrupting traffic, and will probably continue to do so, due to infrastructure unavailability. For example, things should significantly improve for the port of Genoa once the Terzo Valico is completed, albeit some doubts remain.
Despite the general negative figures, there are a couple of ports where rail freight is on the rise. The two main examples are Livorno and Ravenna, respectively on the west and east coasts of Italy. The port of Ravenna handled 7,750 freight trains in 2024, a 7.2 per cent increase on 2023. In Livorno, the number of trains in 2024 rose to 3,228, up by 8.9 per cent compared to the previous year.
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Poor planning.