Railroads of the State, Hupac and Cemat agree a common strategy for the development of the intermodal terminals in Italy North



Today to Lugano, in occasion of 45ª the shareholders' meeting of the intermodal operator Helvetic Hupac, the group Italian Railroads of State (FSI), Hupac and the intermodal society Cemat, that FS through FS is participated with 53.3% from the Logistic group and with 34.5% from the same Hupac, they have agreed a common terminalistica strategy for the Italy North.

In occasion of the Hupac assembly it has organized a forum of the transports on the topic "Alptransit, opportunity for the economy", in the course of which the necessity is restated to place the transport of the goods on railroad to the center of the strategies of development of infrastructures and that in such optical the tunnel of base of the Gottardo will produce the attended benefits for infrastructural the Rotterdam-Genoa corridor if they will be exceeded the gap in Switzerland and abroad.

Introducing the forum, the president of Hupac, Hans-Jörg Bertschi, it has found the importance of the transports on the axis north-south for the Swiss company: "our net - it has explained - is extended in all Europe and from some years it reaches also the emergent markets in Russia and China. But our Core business is the transalpine traffic: two shipments on three of Hupac have origin or destination in Italy. For this reason we have strengthened ulteriorly the collaboration with our Cemat partner: we join the forces in order to develop to the traffic on the traditional axis north-south and the new broken towards east".

The gallery of base of the Gottardo, that it will be operating in 2017 - has continued Bertschi - is a great opportunity that goes picked in the full load of its potential one. He is indispensable to adapt to the lines of long access all the corridor in order to put the intermodal trains in conditions for competing with the road traffic and for transferring the traffic goods from the road to the track. "The secret of success - it has restated - is in the productivity of the system: they serve railway infrastructures that allow us to travel with trains with a length of 750 meters, heavy 2,000 tons and hauled from a single locomotive for all the covered draft, able to transport the modern semitowings with lateral height of 4 meters. Between little years the subsidies granted from Switzerland to the intermodalità will go in exhaustion, and we must be ready to remain on the market with our forces".

Hupac has emphasized that the hurting point is the temporal dimension of the work of adaptation of the lines, than today anticipates parameters very more modest with lengths train of 575 meters and a profile of 3,80 meters, and the Helvetic company considers that the adaptation of the Bellinzona-Luino-Novara line, that it manages 80% of the intermodal traffic via Gottardo and serves the great terminals to the west of Milan, goes executed within 2020. The work - it has specified the Swiss society - demands work of modest entity that partially was already programmed. Remembering that more challenging, instead, it is the potenziamento of the director via Uproar, that it needs the construction of East Gronda Seregno-Bergamo for bypassare the node of Milan and therefore could be only realized after 2030, Bertschi has evidenced that "the potenziamento of both is necessary the lines. The line of Luino - it has specified - is more urgent, while the line of Uproar is more important because it will have to manage the great volumes of the future. We do not fall in the error to concentrate to us on the great works of tomorrow and forgetting the necessities today".

Bernardino Regazzoni, ambassador of Switzerland in Italy, has confirmed the validity of the decision to elaborate a terminalistica strategy in functional northern Italy to the attended flows of traffic with Alptransit, which first step of the strategy of the infrastructural development on the railway corridor Rotterdam-Genoa. "It is right to leave from the terminals in order to define the access lines - it has agreed the ambassador - this is worth is for the already existing terminals as Busto Arsizio or Novara, is for the new terminals that will rise in Lombardy. Switzerland can financially support the construction or the widening of terminals in Italy, based on our laws, if we work in a picture of sharing and responsibility. Today - it has continued Regazzoni - a memorandum of understanding for the terminalistici projects of Milan, Brescia and Piacenza by Group FSI, Cemat and Hupac, an essential card in the mosaic of the transports will be signed goods railway to European level. I am trusting. Step after step we will know to reach others important goals of which they will benefit is the Italy that Switzerland".

Also Fabio Regazzi, member of the Commission Transports of the Swiss parliament and new president of the association Swiss Shippers Council, has evidenced the necessity of concrete steps for the traffic goods. The transfer of the heavy traffic from the road to the track - it has specified - is an important national task, but it must get rid the ideologismi and face the truth in concrete and pragmatic way: "road and track - it has added Regazzi - are complementary and must progress in sinergico way without distortions neither false waits. The traffic goods deserves our attention. In such sense, it is task of politics to address the strategies of infrastructural development of the Swiss Federal Railroads and to supervise on their performance. It must head at investments in infrastructures that increase to the productivity of the railway transport goods rather than in subsidies that do not stimulate the productive improvement of the integrated logistic chains".

Rimarcando that "the Lombardy is between the main European economic areas and naturally aims at to the best connections towards north" and that the intermodalità is a precise choice, adopted beyond twenty years ago, that has carried to concrete results (the terminals of Segrate, Busto Arsizio, Gallarate, Mortara and Sacconago has been born graces to a meaningful contribution by the Lombardy Region), the city council member to Infrastructures and Mobility of the Region Lombardy, Raffaele Cattaneo, has found that this not enough: "if it is considered that on 400 million tons transported every year in Lombardy only 24 pass on track - has explained the city council member - it turns out obvious that we must in the first place pick the challenge in terms of ulterior development of the infrastructural net".

Cattaneo has remembered that the work of the "regional Table for mobility of the goods" is proceeding quickly that it sees reunited transport operators, managers of terminal, railway societies and managers of the railway infrastructure with the objective to make to converge the energies on the more urgent work of potenziamento. In sight of the opening of I tunnel of the Gottardo will be increased the ability to the Uproar-Milan line through a technological potenziamento within 2020 and through the realization of east Gronda Seregno-Bergamo in a subsequent phase. Headquarters remain the node of the intermodal terminals. "The shared terminalistica strategy between Group FSI, Cemat and Hupac - the city council member has asserted - represents an important innovation. The Lombardy Region will make its part in order to make to take off the projects". Cattaneo has specified that they do not go however forgotten the existing terminals, concentrated to cluster to the outlet of the transalpine lines (Sempione and Luino) between the Lombardy and the Piemonte: "they are - it has explained - an economic factor important is for the competitiveness of export Italian that in occupational terms in the field of the logistics. The existing lines will not be abandoned, but more performing yields through little ones participations of adaptation".

According to Mauro Moretti, managing director of group FSI and president of the Community of European Railroads (CER), "Alptransit is an opportunity in order to throw again the rail shipment goods, than today work in conditions of extreme difficulty because of the insufficient competitiveness of system", For To of the Italian railway group, in fact, the modern new railway infrastructures through Switzerland will offer to promising perspectives to the system cargo because for the first time the traffic that will manage will be able to compete with that of the other carriers.

In this perspective it is from seeing also the repositioning of Cemat, of which Moretti it has delineated the future objectives: income in the field of the transport arranged marine from and for the Mediterranean ports through the absorption of the traffics of Italcontainer, development of new services between Italy and the Countries of the East Europe and strengthening of the commercial offer between Italy and the main European Countries carried out together with the partner historical, between which the Hupac associate.

Regarding the appointment of Alptransit, group FSI is declared ready: "in order to answer effectively to the increase of traffic previewed within 2030 - Moretti has said - we will upgrade the line of Uproar with able technological solutions to increase of the ability. Successively we will proceed to the construction of East Gronda. We will give moreover to the way to the development of infrastructures and east terminalistiche activities of Milan so as to guarantee sufficient ability”.

Moretti has found that Italy and Switzerland are integral parts of the same corridor and that therefore the steps must be completed together. “We take note - it has concluded - of the regarding express priorities the corridor of the four meters. We are available to we confront on the times and on the necessary participations, always having the priority for the routes anticipates to elevated ability”.