Major works: only 43% on schedule, bureaucracy weighs heavily

Port systems and metropolitan nodes in Venice and Bologna, with 100% of the works on schedule, are the virtuous examples of the Oti Nord 2025 Report, drawn up, as it is every year, by the Territorial Infrastructure Observatory, created on the initiative of Assolombarda, Confindustria Genoa and Unione Industriali Torino, with the aim of monitoring the progress of the strategic infrastructure systems in this area of the country. The document, which was presented in Genoa, highlights 'significant progress' but also 'critical issues that require renewed institutional commitment'. These include bureaucracy and the availability of the resources needed to complete the works.

Of the 84 works monitored in 2025 by Oti, only "43% are in line with the timetable (48% in 2024), 36% are slightly slowing down (35% in 2024) and 21% are experiencing serious delays (17% in 2024)". The best performance, as mentioned above, "concerns the port system and the metropolitan nodes of Venice and Bologna, with 100% of the works on schedule; the worst performance, on the other hand, is of the multimodal corridor Tyrrhenian-Brenner, with 100% of the works slowing down considerably". 2026, then, the report says, is a significant year for the completion of several works needed to improve accessibility and competitiveness in the north of the country; these include the activation of the Brescia-Verona high-speed rail link, the completion of the first lot of the Verona-Padua high-speed rail link, and the completion of numerous works in the port system and some included in the metropolitan nodes of Genoa, Turin, Venice, and Bologna.

Significant criticalities remain, however, in the Milan and Genoa metropolitan nodes, characterised by a high incidence of works that are slowing down or seriously delayed. In particular, the Milan node, the report certifies, remains among the most problematic, even when compared with 2024. With regard to the system of the Ligurian capital, October 2025 saw the inauguration of part of the railway node (quadruplication Voltri-Genoa Principe), pending its completion (sixfold Principe-Brignole), scheduled for summer 2026. The year that has just passed, however, records how the Gronda di Ponente is still at lot zero, while the skymetro in Val Bisagno has been cancelled.

"Logistics," emphasised Leopoldo Destro, national Confindustria delegate for transport, logistics and the tourism industry, "is an integral part of competitiveness: infrastructure choices directly affect the ability of companies to export and attract investment. For this reason, infrastructure policy must be closely linked to industrial policy and supported by credible programming: plans, approved projects and powers of commissioners must be matched by certain and adequate financial resources. And especially today, in the light of the Middle East conflict, we see how solid tangible and intangible infrastructures can be essential to ensure continuity of logistics chains and development'.

On infrastructures, said Alvise Biffi, president of Assolombarda, 'much remains to be done: the central issue is certainly that of bureaucracy and excessively long times, but also the availability of the necessary resources. At a general level, in order to simplify bureaucracy, it is essential to apply a model that makes the extraordinary ordinary, with virtuous public-private collaboration'.