Together with Trieste and Genoa, Gioia Tauro is one of the three main ports in Italy, but rail freight has so far only played a minor role for its logistics operations. However, after quadrupling the number of trains between 2024 and 2025, the port now wants to become an intermodal hub for sea-rail connections.
“Rail traffic has grown dramatically, going from fewer than 300 trains in 2024 to approximately 1,000 trains in 2025, an increase of over 400%”, the port of Gioia Tauro said. However, these numbers are still significantly lower than its main competitors Trieste and Genoa, which handle a few thousand trains each every year.
The port has traditionally focused its investments “almost exclusively on the sea”, the Port Authority President Paolo Piacenza underlined, which made Gioia Tauro mainly a hub for transshipment from one vessel to the other. Now, Piacenza wants to put the spotlight on sea-rail intermodality, which is where the next investments will go.
Strengthening rail connectivity
In order to move away from the ‘transshipment’ label, the port of Gioia Tauro is working on creating a new intermodal terminal by 2028 and on extending the rail tracks to get them closer to the berth. Moreover, the port is looking to become the reference point for other regions in southern Italy. For example, Piacenza recently visited the Interporto d’Abruzzo terminal to discuss the creation of a rail link with Gioia Tauro to launch next year.
Moreover, the port recently introduced a service to the port of Livorno, in Tuscany, for the automotive sector. “Large ships transporting cars, which cannot operate in the Tuscan port due to their size and require deep waters, which exist only in Gioia Tauro, will be able to dock in Gioia Tauro, where the vehicles will be unloaded and then transferred by train to Livorno”, the port explained