Italy’s rail freight operators are demanding compensation under the country’s EU-backed recovery plan, saying related works are worsening an already deep sector crisis. Clemente Carta, heads of Italian freight association Fermerci, said ‘resources must be found’ for operators hit by the investment programme, warning that Italy could otherwise end up with “a more modern network, but a drastically reduced rail freight sector.”
The demand was made during Fermerci Incontra, the association’s annual meeting at the FS Italiane auditorium in Rome this month, where operators put their case directly to Italy‘s rail institutions, including representatives from the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport, ministry-owned logistics company RAM, state-backed infra manager RFI and the Transport Regulation Authority.
And there was much to discuss. Opening the meeting, Carta said the sector “has been in crisis since 2022”, with Italian rail freight traffic in 2025 falling by around 8% compared with the previous three-year period. “Despite the proclamations,” he argued, “the sector continues not to receive adequate support measures: incentives are undersized, instruments have been defunded even when investments had already begun, and bureaucratic complexities obstruct their implementation,” Carta said.
Works squeeze operators
Italy’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan, or PNRR, has made rail one of the country’s largest infrastructure workstreams. FS Italiane has said it is carrying out around 25 billion euros of PNRR-funded investment by 2026, covering new links, upgrades to the existing network, station renewal and the deployment of technologies such as ERTMS. RFI’s ERTMS programme alone is backed by 2.5 billion euros in PNRR funds and is intended to cover around 2,800 kilometres of network by June 2026.
For freight operators, however, the issue is the disruption created while those works are being delivered. Fermerci says the programme is putting operators under pressure at a time when the market is already weak, with construction works affecting capacity, operating conditions and the reliability of rail freight services.
“The trains of our members are continuing to guarantee the country’s logistics continuity under extremely penalising conditions,” Carta said. He added that the revision of the PNRR should be used to allocate resources “to compensate for the damage that operators are suffering precisely as a result of the implementation of the Plan.”
Support schemes and regulation
The association is therefore seeking continuity in support schemes, rather than short-term or reduced measures. It wants Italy to extend and refinance Ferrobonus, the country’s incentive for intermodal rail freight, Norma Merci, a wider rail freight aid scheme, and national funding to help operators equip locomotives with ERTMS technology.
On regulation, Fermerci said freight operators need rules that reflect how the sector actually works, citing terminal access charges, capacity allocation and the development of industrial sidings as areas of concern.
Carta went on to criticise the timing of public support, arguing that delayed payments had reduced the effect of incentives and created liquidity problems for operators. Contributions, Fermerci says, need to be recognised and paid with greater certainty and speed, because the time it takes for support measures to reach the market directly impacts their effectiveness. Without timely and better compensation, Carta warned, the country risked completing its rail works while leaving the freight sector “no longer able to support the industrial, logistics and environmental objectives of Italy and Europe.”
