RFI is the infrastructure manager of the Italian national railway network, responsible for track, signalling, traffic control and station infrastructure, and for allocating capacity to every operator that runs trains in Italy. It was established on 1 July 2001 as a separate company inside the FS Group and holds a 60-year state concession over the network.
RFI manages 16,832 km of active railway lines, 24,564 km of track in total and around 2,200 stations. Around 9,000 trains run on that network every day, passenger and freight combined.
The company was created to comply with the European requirement to separate network management from transport operations. Before 2001 the Italian network was managed directly by Ferrovie dello Stato, the same entity that ran the trains.
Access, paths and charges
As the Infrastructure Manager (EU definition), RFI publishes the Network Statement under Legislative Decree 112/2015, setting out network characteristics, access conditions and the rules for allocating capacity. It is the document any operator planning to enter the Italian market starts from.
Charging is set through a tariff system approved for multi-year periods, currently 2025-2029, with the Transport Regulation Authority as the reviewing body. Access charges are a direct input to any operator’s cost base, which is why the tariff review is followed closely by open-access operators.
Investment is governed separately through Programme Contracts with the Italian state, which fix what is built and maintained and with what funding. This splits RFI’s income into two streams with different logics: charges paid by operators, and state money tied to construction programmes.
The ERTMS programme
Italy equipped its high-speed lines with ERTMS from the outset, beginning with the Rome-Naples line opened in December 2005. Those lines run under ETCS Level 2 at 300 km/h operating speed.
RFI has since committed to extending ERTMS across the entire national network by 2036, at a stated investment of around 15 billion EUR. It is one of the largest single signalling migrations under way in Europe.
The first phase is financed with 2.5 billion EUR from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) and covers roughly 2,800 km, with an interim milestone of 1,400 km reached on schedule. Deployment requires both trackside equipment and onboard fitment, which ties the programme to the fleet renewal of every operator using the network.
Corridors, ferries and stations
Several European Transport Corridors run across RFI’s network, including the Alpine crossings towards Austria, Switzerland and France. Corridor work brings the company into planning and funding processes defined at EU level rather than nationally.
RFI’s position in the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) also determines which upgrades qualify for European co-funding. Standards for line speed, axle load and train length on core network sections follow from the same framework.
The company’s remit extends beyond track. Through subsidiaries it operates the train ferries between the Italian mainland and Sicily and manages the largest Italian stations, both of which are treated as service facilities under EU access rules.