Milan is one of the busiest cities in Europe when it comes to train traffic, and finding the right balance between freight and passenger convoys remains an issue. Local politicians are now asking to reduce the number of freight trains running in Milan during peak passenger traffic hours.

The regional assessor for transport, Franco Lucente, wants to sit at a table with all stakeholders involved, including the Italian railway holding Ferrovie dello Stato and the Ministry of Transport to try and find new solutions. “I think it is incumbent on us to check whether there should be an additional restriction on the movement of freight trains at certain times, I’m thinking in the morning and evening”, he said.

Three reasons behind Milan’s lack of capacity

One of the main issues concerning Milan is that it is already at maximum rail capacity for a few different reasons, as Italian media Il Giorno explained. First, all trains need to share the same tracks, without dedicated infrastructure for freight trains or high-speed and international passenger services.

The second reason for congestion in Milan is that most stations are dead-end stations. This means that trains have to stop and restart their journey in the opposite direction, which are time and space-consuming measures. The third main factor in causing lack of new capacity is that over half of the rail infrastructure in Milan, 51 per cent, is on a single track.