Fs, start of the 100 billion 2025-2029 industrial plan. Donnarumma: 'More trains and punctuality recovery'

The 2025-2029 industrial plan, which will focus on over EUR 100 billion in investments "and a profound transformation of the company in order to make a concrete contribution to the country's development and confirm Europe as its domestic market", is travelling under the sign of discontinuity, because "when we talk about the domestic market we have to look to Europe," says newly appointed CEO Stefano Donnarumma during the presentation at the Auditorium in Rome. In the parterre, in the front row, Infrastructure Minister Matteo Salvini, Deputy Minister Edoardo Rixi, and Rome Mayor Roberto Gualtieri.

The Plan presented by Donnarumma will be based on eight strategic guidelines. The objectives include activating new high-speed railway lines to connect hitherto unserved territories, so as to increase the number of people reached by the high-speed system in Italy by 30%. This involves 46 new HS trains, 145 regional trains and 1260 buses over the next 10 years. "It is a very Italian issue," explains Donnarumma, "that of reaching people in unserved territories. And, a sore point in recent months, the challenge of challenges: 'The recovery of punctuality for more than 50,000 trains a year', as the group explains in a note. On the international front, FS estimates an increase in passenger volume of 40%. Operational discipline, thanks also to the considerable investments, aims to increase efficiency by 5% of the attackable operating costs, the company says. In addition, the group announces, on the sustainability front, more than a Gigawatt of photovoltaics will be installed by 2029 and, as far as innovation and safety are concerned, it is set to reach 100% of the Core Extended network covered by Ertms by 2040. There is also a revolution in governance with the elimination of poles and a return to group centrality. As for the investments that the group will make in the coming years, 'out of 100 billion, only 14 billion will come from Pnrr funds.

On the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, of the approximately 25 billion in resources allocated to Ferrovie (the last revision of the NRP had reduced them by about 2 billion), about 11 billion were allocated in October, but 'a proposal for remodelling on projects characterised by exogenous contingencies has been launched to ensure that the targets are met'. Donnarumma cites the Third Pass, the cross and delight of the railway works financed by the NRRP and long considered a work at risk. "The construction site," he says, "has been delayed in the last 700 metres because of a gas leak that would have jeopardised the safety of the workers employed in the construction of the work, but we have now found the solution. Then the blow: 'It is not that if we do not respect the commitment of 30 June it means that we have done nothing,' the CEO vented. And more generally, looking at Minister Salvini, 'if we had made the Pnrr with this government we would have made other choices, some of those adopted are very complicated'.

On the investment front, the new five-year plan envisages ITL 50 billion for the maintenance of existing services and another ITL 60 billion for the construction of new lines and the marketing of new routes. Among the interventions, ITL 9.7 billion is planned for the Palermo-Catania-Messina line and ITL 3.2 billion for the Naples-Bari line.