Moving fast Bombardier Transportation Italy

MOVING FAST

As part of the world’s only manufacturer of both planes and trains, Bombardier Transportation Italy SpA has a strong position on the domestic market, where it is currently the leading producer of electric locomotives. Barbara Rossi reports.

Bombardier Transportation Italy is part of the Montreal-headquartered Bombardier Group, which is active in both aerospace and transportation. In fact, the group can offer the world’s most comprehensive aircraft portfolio, as well as being a global leader in the rail industry. In aerospace it ranks at number one with regard to business and regional aircrafts, while in transportation it has 63 production and engineering sites in 26 countries, plus 19 service centres across the world. Its extensive portfolio of mobility solutions benefits from the crossover between the two sectors in which it operates.

As the name suggests, Bombardier Transportation Italy is part of the transportation division of the group, which offers a full spectrum of rail solutions, including complete trains, sub-systems, maintenance services, system integration and signalling.

The Italian company has an outstanding level of know-how in the high- and very high-speed sectors and operates from two engineering and manufacturing sites in Italy (alongside its offices in Rome and Palermo). These two operational sites are based in Vado Ligure, near Savona, in the Liguria region of north-west Italy and Rome. The Rome site is an engineering centre, in which a wide range of control

systems are developed. Vado Ligure, on the other hand, contains both engineering and manufacturing facilities. With a total area of 60,900m2, this plant has a history dating back more than 100 years. It is where the first Italian electric locomotive was built in 1905.

Today, continuing with this pioneering tradition, the Vado Ligure site is at the centre of the production of locomotives for passengers and freight transport, in addition to being the base for the company’s Services division. The latter takes care of total after sales activities, including fleet maintenance, technical support, materials management, vehicle refurbishment and modernisation and overhaul of systems. Its scope of activity is not limited to Italy, as it also covers many other Mediterranean countries. The Mainline and Metro division leads the production, development and promotion of passenger vehicles (regional trains, highspeed trains and trams).

Recently, Bombardier Transportation Italy SpA saw a very important change at the highest managerial level when Mr Luigi Corradi was appointed its new MD. Mr Corradi, who succeeded Mr Roberto Tazzioli, was previously the general director of the Vado Ligure plant.

Recent and ongoing projects

Bombardier is working on several interesting and innovative rail projects. First of all, it is involved in the supply of electric locomotives and high-speed solutions to various Italian rail operators. Examples of high-speed solutions are the Frecciarossa 1000, which has been developed in partnership with Ansaldo Breda, and the Etr500, to which Bombardier contributes as a member of the Consorzio Trevi (Trevi Consortium).

Speed is very important to the company: thanks to its know-how in high- and very high-speed trains, it has developed trains that can travel at up to 360km/h, such as the ZEFIRO380, which in 2009 was supplied to the Chinese Ministry of Railways through an order worth over one billion euros. All the ZEFIRO models offer speeds between 250 and 380km/h and the highest levels of comfort and capacity, alongside low operating costs and diverse application options for different countries and railway networks.

Other projects in which Bombardier is involved are the Innovia People Mover for Rome Fiumicino airport and the Flexity trams for Milan (Lombardy) and Palermo (Sicily).

Working together

In addition to the above, Bombardier is the leader of a consortium (which also comprises Finmeccanica-owned Ansaldo Breda) which has recently won a ten-year fleet maintenance contract from Trenitalia, the leading Italian rail operator. Bombardier has a €154 million share of the contract and its aim is to optimise the availability and reliability of the new vehicles thanks to a maintenance programme (including preventive maintenance) which will start as soon as these vehicles become operational in mid-2015.

The new Bombardier double-decker longdistance trains for FSS should also become operational in 2017. Overall Bombardier will supply 65 new trains.

Furthermore, through a consortium with Thales, Bombardier has been awarded a contract for the modernisation of the Mediterranean Corridor by the Spanish company Adif (Administrador de Infraestructuras Ferroviarias), which manages the Spanish rail infrastructure network. The overall value of the contract is about €44 million, Bombardier’s share of which is worth about €27 million.

Another interesting development for Bombardier was the recent drafting of a €33 million contract with Akiem, a French leasing company, for the supply of 10 Bombardier TRAXX locomotives. The contract also contains an option for the supply of an extra 10 locomotives. Taking this option into account, the potential value of the contract would rise to about €65 million. The delivery of these vehicles, which would be employed for freight transport in Italy and Poland, is expected to take place between the third trimester of 2015 and the first trimester of 2016. Thanks to this, Akiem will be able to expand its TRAXX fleet, which is currently made up of 15 locomotives purchased in 2013. n