Stretto di Messina responded to the main observations made by an association opposed to the construction of the Messina Strait bridge during a press conference today. The Company’s CEO, Pietro Ciucci, reiterated: “We have never shied away from dialogue on any aspect of the project, and we are open to suggestions, recommendations, and possible improvements, but in response claims are often made that have no scientific or technical foundation. In other words, the aim is not to improve the project, but rather to place all kinds of obstacles in the way to hinder its construction. The bridge is a strategic project of priority national interest, whose construction has been entrusted to Stretto di Messina by Parliament and the Government. Our specific task is to build it in keeping with the high-quality design, on time and within budget. Within this remit, the bridge will serve to provide road and rail continuity, whilst boosting the prospects for Sicilian and Calabrian ports. It is the best means for meeting demand for a more efficient and modern system for connecting Sicily with Calabria and the rest of the European mainland. It is a local project for the local area, which will have a positive impact on the entire country, uniting two southern regions with a population of more than 7 million inhabitants. As a piece of the national and European transport jigsaw, along the TEN-T “Helsinki – Palermo – Valletta” rail-road corridor, it makes extension of the national and European high-speed/high-capacity rail system sustainable in Calabria and Sicily. It is undeniable that a permanent connection, which enhances mobility options and helps to keep transport costs down, provides added value for citizens.”

RESPONSES TO THE MAIN OBSERVATIONS 

Phased detailed design
The bridge has been technically feasible for 20 years. The purpose of the detailed design is to fine-tune construction and implementation details, and does not regard the technical feasibility of the project. The construction phase detailed design is in line with international best practices, and aims to optimise construction of the project, whilst reducing the time needed and costs. It does not entail any non-completion risk, nor grant any favours to the General Contractor. The bridge comprises a set of works: advanced works, environmental support works, terrestrial links, and more than 40 km of roads and railways that are functional, practicable and useful to the population from the outset. The bridge, the towers and the anchor blocks will obviously comprise a single project.

Pillars on faults
With regard to geological and seismic aspects, the final design is supplemented by more than 300 geological charts resulting from new and more extensive documentation at various graphic scales, carried out with the help of approximately 400 point surveys, including geological, geotechnical and seismic surveys. All the faults in the Strait of Messina area have been identified, surveyed and monitored, including those on the Calabrian side. Based on the geo-seismotectonic studies carried out, the project’s points of contact with land were identified, taking care to avoid any positioning on active faults.

Italian National Anti-corruption Authority (ANAC) findings
Stretto di Messina confirms its sharp focus on the role played by ANAC, and on the suggestions and recommendations it has made. In this regard, it should be noted that shelving the project in 2012 was not related to the quality of the design produced by the General Contractor. As is well known, Eurolink’s designs underwent verification, control and validation processes never before carried out in Italy in the field of public works, and passed with flying colours. This also creates the risk, as ANAC pointed out, of providing the Company with a legal weapon to assert its claims in any litigation against the state, if the project is not carried out. Indeed, as already mentioned, the basis of such litigation does not regard the validity of the project, but rather revolves around issues primarily related to efforts to outlaw the contract and the consequent loss of earnings due to services not rendered. ANAC also claims that it would have been necessary to start with the publication of a new call for tenders to select the General Contractor. This was because the final design of 2011 was deemed to be out of date with respect to the latest techniques. In this regard, it should be noted that the final design is perfectly valid from an engineering point of view, and, as laid down in Legislative Decree 35, has been updated to meet the new technical standards.

EU Directive changes to project costs
Legislative Decree 35 of 31 March 2023 explicitly refers to the provisions of Article 72 of the EU Directive: “The provisions of Article 72 of Directive2014/24/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council and its implementing internal rules shall apply to the acts referred to in paragraphs 3 and 4, and they shall be adopted in accordance with the European Union’s public contract law“. Therefore, the provisions will be complied with. In any event, the growth in the value of the investment (from €8.5 billion in 2011 to €13.5 billion in the 2024 Economic Planning Document) does not refer to a greater amount of works, but rather to a sharp increase in costs over the last two years.

Traffic growth with the bridge
With construction of the bridge, the share of traffic accounted for by rail, road, air and maritime transport will depend on the time and cost reductions ensured by the bridge, as well as delivery of the substantial programme of planned road and rail infrastructure works for Sicily and Calabria. In particular, the upgrade of the Messina – Catania – Palermo railway line and construction of the Salerno – Reggio Calabria HS line, which, in synergy with the new railway line serving the bridge and the Fast HS services, will bring travel times to and from Sicily down to levels that are highly competitive with air travel times. Compared to the current situation, with the opening of the bridge rail transport will gain more market share (up 24%), becoming the second most important mode for passengers travelling between Sicily and the Italian mainland after air transport (46%). Under the project scenario, the share accounted for by cars is largely stable (17%), with an increase of a few decimal points, while the shares of other forms of transport are marginal, amounting to 5.5% for buses (in line with the current scenario) and 4% for ships, which also serve the link between central and northern Italy and western Sicily (long-distance RoRo connections).
The improvement in accessibility, with related reductions in travel times and costs, will also generate so-called induced mobility, which, for example, with regard to HS rail services in Italy, has enabled capture of a share of air and road transport amounting to around 40%.
Induced mobility will also be favoured by the introduction of a metropolitan rail link between the two built-up areas of Messina and Reggio Calabria, which has a far greater reach and is more effective than the current ferry and hydrofoil services. Three new stations are planned (Papardo, Annunziata and Europa) which, together with the stations of Messina, Villa San Giovanni and Reggio, will consolidate the metropolitan system for Messina and Reggio Calabria, to serve the more than 400,000 inhabitants who live in the area of the Strait.

The bridge and the EU
On 13 June, the European Council confirmed the inclusion of the Strait of Messina Bridge in the “Scandinavian-Mediterranean” corridor. On 17 July, within the envelopes of the CEF (Connecting Europe Facility) Programme, the European Commission allocated funding of €25 million to the detailed design, amounting to 50 percent of the funding set aside for the rail component.

Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) and CO2 savings
A CBA was carried out in accordance with European and national guidelines: operational guidelines for the appraisal of investment in public works – rail sector (26/10/2021); operational guidelines for the appraisal of investment in public works – road sector (7/7/2022); “EU Grants: CINEA Guide on economic appraisal for CEF-T Transport Projects”.
The analysis showed that construction of the Strait of Messina Bridge would make a substantial contribution to the enhancement of collective wellbeing, bringing significant net benefits to the national community, and improving economic and environmental aspects. Compared with an investment cost of €13.5 billion (Economic Planning Document 2024), the Net Present Value (NPV) is €3.9 billion (discounted as of 2023), and the Internal Rate of Return (IRR) is 4.51%.
EMSA-certified data for all ship types were used to calculate the reduction of CO2 emissions from ships, taking into account the change that will occur due to efficiency gains from International Maritime Organization (IMO) and EU regulations.

Cost-benefit analysis and the “do nothing” scenario
The benchmark “do nothing” scenario includes all the planned infrastructure and regulatory interventions in the rail sector (new HS lines in Calabria and line upgrades in Sicily) and in the maritime sector (for example, Tremestieri port). In addition, energy savings resulting from new regulations for all types of transport, as well as planned initiatives to improve the quality of the traditional connections across the Strait of Messina, have been envisaged.

Navigation clearance
The navigation clearance of the Messina Strait bridge is 72 metres over a width of 600 metres. This is reduced to 65 metres under heavy road and rail traffic conditions, and is extremely easy to manage. This height is in line with or greater than existing bridges on major international shipping lanes, in accordance with the procedures laid down by IMO regulations. The navigation clearance was verified by taking into account the extreme on-site temperature conditions expected, together with the presence of substantial road traffic on the deck, and the issue of trains of various types passing each other while crossing the bridge, including freight trains of a size and mass greater than current train operating capacity.

Wind and bridge practicability
The Messina Strait bridge will be open 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, without any traffic interruptions due to wind. This is due to the special aerodynamic shape of the deck and the wind barriers that also serve to ensure users’ comfort and safety. The bridge will only be completely closed under exceptional circumstances, if average wind speeds exceed 169 km per hour, an event that may be statistically expected to occur in the Strait once every 200 years.

The final design
The final design for the bridge embodies the highest standards of engineering, and all large-span suspension bridges are based on the Messina style, including the very recently built bridge over the Dardanelles Strait, which was opened on 18 March 2022.
Many of the large-span bridges that have been built, are under construction or soon to be built, take their inspiration from the technical studies and characteristics of the Strait of Messina Bridge. Indeed, since the proposed preliminary design of 1992, drawn up by Stretto di Messina, the concept and outcomes achieved for the Strait of Messina Bridge have become well known in the international arena and aroused great interest, with many studies being converted into construction projects over the subsequent decades.
The proposed preliminary design of 1992, which 30 years ago outlined a possible future for which there were no applications, is completely up-to-date and is only now starting to be converted into construction projects throughout the world, with many others expected to follow in the future, making it the world’s leading benchmark for state-of-the-art bridges, known as “Messina style”.
The final design of 2022 for the Strait of Messina Bridge is the outcome of further in-depth studies and new technologies, marking the acme of knowledge in the field of suspension bridges, and making it one of the key reference points.

Upsizing
Over the last century and the beginning of the current one, construction has achieved increasingly ambitious goals. With regard to suspension bridges, the aerodynamic behaviour of decks has become increasingly important as spans get bigger (single span). The Strait of Messina Bridge (a single span of 3,300 metres) adopts a multi-beamed, wing-like deck, which performs best under windy conditions. The wing-like deck has been adopted for many suspension bridges already in operation, including the Humber bridge (1,410m, opened to traffic in 1981), the Great Belt (1,624m, opened to traffic in 1998), and the Dardanelles Strait bridge (Turkey), opened on 18 March 2022, a road-only suspension bridge with three lanes in each direction, a total deck length of 5,169m (central span 2,023m) and 318m-high pillars.
Suspension bridges with spans of around 2,500m are also being planned in Japan and China, which envisage the adoption of wing-like decks (like the Strait of Messina bridge).
With regard to trains crossing suspension bridges, it should be taken into account that, with a span exceeding 1,500m, the main cables play an increasingly important role in the behaviour of suspension bridges, due to the greater size of the cables. As the weight of the cables increases at the same time, the overall behaviour of the bridge primarily depends on the weight of the structure itself, with the transit of users (including rail users) becoming less and less important for design purposes.
Moreover, upsizing has occurred precisely during a period in the construction sector that has seen no radical changes in construction techniques and materials. For example, the maximum height of skyscrapers rose modestly and gradually to 508m for the Taipei 101 between 1973 to 2004, while in 2010 the Burj Khalifa skyscraper (Dubai) reached a height of 828m (marking a surge of 320m in just six years). The Jeddah Tower, which is under construction, is 1,008 metres high.

Bridge suspension cables
Claims that technical problems have occurred with the suspension system are without any scientific or technical foundation. The bridge’s main cables are not a prototype. In particular, the four main cables, made using PPWS – prefabricated wires consisting of 127 galvanised, high-strength strands – are similar in size to those used in Japan’s Akashi bridge, which has been in operation for 26 years. Moreover, it should be noted that recent constructions (ShiZiYang Bridge, 2020) are equipped with cables with an even larger diameter than the ones used for the Strait of Messina Bridge (1.30m vs. 1.2m).
With regard to the issue of timeframes and procedures for the cable fretting fatigue tests, it should be noted that such tests last a few months (and certainly not years or even decades), and make use of hydraulic jacks and structures with a maximum size of 20-25 metres.