A greater and sharper presence in the international framework is certainly one of the pillars of Trenitalia strategy for freight transport. Our strategic policy for internationalization on the main connecting routes to Continental Europe is confirmed by the operations that Trenitalia has recently finalised. On the North-South axis, Trenitalia has completed the acquisition of TX Logistik, a German freight rail transport company operating in the German and European markets, by relieving all its shares from its founders. TX Logistik offers cross-border rail services through its subsidiaries in Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, and Italy, and proposes innovative, successful logistics services. TX Logistik’s market is continuously expanding, and today it extends all the way from Scandinavia to Italy, connecting the main European industrial areas. Moreover TX Logistik is now in the process of acquiring a safety certificate in France, to be able to offer its services also on the East-West axis Poland-Germany-France/Belgium. Concerning the Western axis, Trenitalia Cargo has recently launched a freight transport service with Italian drivers on the French Amberieu-Modane track, roughly 200kms long. This new service was created in partnership with Europorte France, which manages the terminals in France. This service provides 5 pairs of trains weekly, for a total volume of 450 thousand tons a year. In France, Trenitalia Cargo operates also through its subsidiary Trenitalia Logistics France. Concerning the Eastern axis, Trenitalia is a shareholder in two commercial companies, Pol-Rail and Rom-Rail. However, since this axis is of remarkable strategic interest, due to its high growth indexes, expected in terms of GDP of Eastern European Countries, and volumes transported as well, Trenitalia is evaluating new commercial partnerships.

None of this is true, at least insofar as the FS Italiane Group is conncerned. The data published by Confetra are incomplete and misleading because the data from Trenitalia is completely missing. Trenitalia not only has not recorded any collapse, but in the first nine months of this year, has seen traffic volumes grow on the whole, in spite of a particularly complex economic situation. To revitalize the sector, the FS Italiane Group has carried out a thorough reorganization process, expanded its national and international services, invested in technology, and modified its industrial processes, adopting criteria of greater efficiency and productivity. In this view, Trenitalia, like all the main European railway companies, has replaced its inefficient, high-cost single-wagon and groups-wagon traffic (distributed traffic) with “multi-client services”, strengthening its range of full train   services for both national and international traffic. Finally, the 2011-2015 Business Plan of FS Italiane and the recent activities carried out by Trenitalia demonstrate the clear aim of revitalizing the freight sector, by regaining competitiveness in all the Group companies, from Trenitalia to TX Logistik to FS Logistica.

The new organization has been designed to meet the needs of the industry partners with greater reliability and speed, creating ad hoc commercial proposals that can range from single traction to complete logistical solutions on both national and international links. With the investments that have already been made, our Clients can work in complete autonomy, accessing information, directly filling out their rail consignment notes (even with certified electronic signatures), and continuously monitoring their transport movements through the tracking&tracing. In addition, they can request integrations/changes to their timetable of international trains and directly send/manage their complaints to the administrative departments. Naturally, for our larger clients, we have set up specific mechanisms to allow the exchange of large data flows (host to host). In the coming months, other new services will be launched to ensure increasingly punctual and efficient management of our Clients.