Contship | RailFreight.com

Only 5% of companies choose intermodal in three Italian key regions

Marco Raimondi — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 09:42:02 +0000

Lombardy, Veneto and Emilia Romagna are three of the most productive regions in Italy and logistics plays a key role here in connecting businesses with ports. However, the percentage of companies choosing intermodal services has been below 5% three of the last four years, according to an annual joint study from Contship and SRM.
The only exception was 2023, where 20% of companies stated they were using intermodal services to connect their sites with ports. Overall, the average between 2019 and 2025 was a not-so-optimal 11%, with a staggering 89% of participants in the study choosing only-road transport. Over the past two years this has grown even worse, as over 95% of companies have been choosing trucks over trains.

Some optimism transpired for the future, as 21% of the companies answering claimed they will or are planning to implement intermodal services to reach ports. These good intentions, however, mostly come from Lombardian respondents (38%). Only 13% of the ones from Veneto pledged to use intermodality while for Emilia Romagna it did not go over 7%.

Changes in causes

One thing that has changed in 2025 are the reasons why customers prefer the road over intermodal. Lower costs remain the main motive, but the percentage changed from 59% in 2024 to 43% last year. On the other hand, reliability and safety and force of habit increased. Companies saying they use the road because they have always done so more than doubled from 17% to 35%. Respondents thinking that road transport is safer and more reliable than intermodal services also grew from 20% in 2024 to 31% in 2025.

Contship expands intermodal network: now links Italian Melzo with Dutch Moerdijk

Dennis van der Laan — Tue, 14 Jan 2025 07:27:19 +0000

Hannibal, the intermodal transport operator of Italian intermodal company Contship, is expanding its network. The company is launching a connection between Melzo, near Milan in Italy, with Moerdijk in the Netherlands. It is eyeing a quick expansion of the service early in the new year.
Contship “announces a new intermodal service by A2B-online, which will connect Melzo with Moerdijk, in the Netherlands”, the Italian company writes. It wants to quickly expand the service, scaling up from the initial 3 weekly round-trips to 4 round-trips by April 2025.

“This connection represents a significant step in strengthening commercial ties between
the Netherlands and Italy, perfectly aligning with our objective of optimizing our
customers’ supply chains,” commented Andrea Spagnuolo, Sales and Business Development Manager at Contship.

Strategic choice

Contship points out that the choice for Moerdijk is a strategic one. “As a multimodal hub located within a port boasting over 40 kilometres of roads and 35 kilometres of rail tracks, it enjoys a privileged position offering further connections to various destinations in the United Kingdom.”

Milan gets two new rail freight services

Marco Raimondi — Mon, 09 Dec 2024 09:17:28 +0000

Two new rail freight services were launched to intermodal hubs near Milan, in northern Italy. One connects the Maddaloni- Marcianise terminal, north of Naples, to Contship’s Rail Hub MIlano in Melzo, east of the city. The other one links the port of Trieste, in the Italian northeast, with the Malpensa Intermodale terminal near the homonym airport west of Milan.
The Marciansie-Melzo service is launched by Hannibal, the multimodal transport operator of Contship Italia Group, in cooperation with Oceanogate, the group’s rail freight operator. The first train departed seven days ago. “Departures from Melzo are scheduled on Tuesdays and Thursdays, while those from Marcianise will take place on Wednesdays and Fridays”, the Contship said.

The Trieste-Malpensa service was inaugurated on Thursday 5 December. There are currently four roundtrips every week, but there are already plans to increase the frequency in 2025. The service sees the involvement of the port of Trieste, logistics operator Alpe Adria, shipping giant DFDS, the Swiss Federal Railways and Malpensa Intermodale, which manages the terminal.

Contship to boost rail freight in La Spezia with terminal expansion

Marco Raimondi — Fri, 07 Jun 2024 08:50:49 +0000

Italian intermodal company Contship started the procedures to expand the Ravano container terminal at the port of La Spezia, on the Italian northwestern coast. With this terminal, the company said it aims to increase its TEU capacity from 1,4 to 2 million. Rail is expected to play a key role, as mentioned by Contiship’s CEO Matthieu Gasselin.
Contship recently published a tender for 90 million euros for the upgrade of the Ravano terminal and will receive proposals until 3 September. Construction is expected to start in December and last roughly two years, meaning the facility should become operational by the end of 2026.

Rail freight to be a key factor in La Spezia

It is not yet clear what the Ravano terminal expansion will look like, but rail freight should be at the centre of the project as Contship wants to move 50 per cent of its throughput. The Ravano terminal is part of the La Spezia Container Terminal (LSCT) conglomerate, which Contship manages.

In 2022, LSCT obtained 160 million euros to strengthen the rail infrastructure of the port of La Spezia. The port itself is also working on increasing the share of rail freight. For example, the Eastern Ligurian Sea Port Authority received 9 million euros from the Connecting Europe Facility to develop the new La Spezia Marittima rail terminal.

Also read:

2024 brings new Italy-Benelux rail freight connections

Marco Raimondi — Fri, 19 Jan 2024 09:50:11 +0000

Freight convoys running between Italy and the Benelux region are increasing with the beginning of 2024. GTS Rail has increased its Bologna-Zeebrugge frequency from four to six weekly trains. Moreover, starting in February, Contship will upgrade from three to five weekly convoys between Milan and Rotterdam.
Contship will implement this frequency increase as of 5 February. The service entails a direct connection between the Rail Hub Milano in Melzo with the Botlek terminal at the port of Rotterdam. In total, Contship’s links between the two locations will rise to 15. The service is also suitable for semi-trailers, both cranable and non-cranable. Rail traction for this service is carried out by SBB Cargo International, a subsidiary of the Swiss national rail freight company SBB Cargo.

Concerning GTS Rail, the increase in the frequency of their service connecting Bologna, in Italy, with Zeebrugge in Belgium, was preceded by the acquisition of 54 new wagons. The Italian company invested seven million euros for the rolling stock, whose delivery will be finalised in the first months of 2024. The company also invested 74 million euros in the purchase of 20 locomotives from Alstom, half of which will be delivered this year, with the rest coming in in 2025.

Also read:

Hannibal to launch new rail service to connect port of La Spezia with China

Marco Raimondi — Wed, 25 Jan 2023 08:43:09 +0000

Hannibal is inaugurating a new rail freight service between Marzaglia, 50 kilometres northwest of Bologna, and Melzo, near Milan. This new service is expected to strengthen the connection between the port of La Spezia and the rest of Europe as well as China.
The first train is scheduled to depart on Wednesday, 25 January. Initially, there will be three weekly roundtrips, with a plan to extend to five in a relatively short time. The new service is suitable for P400 semitrailers. OceanoGate, a Contship rail traction company, will be in charge of the traction. The area around Marzaglia is considered strategic by Consthip since its location makes it a crossroads for both maritime and land traffic in Italy, as Hannibal specified on LinkedIn.

Connecting La Spezia to Europe and China

Goods from La Spezia can be transported to Contship’s Marzaglia terminal thanks to the service launched by the company in February 2022, which runs five times a week. From here, the cargo can now be moved to Contship’s Rail Hub Melzo and from there to European destinations, including Austria, Germany, and the Netherlands. Moreover, this service might benefit trade between Italy and China as well, Contship, in fact, operates a rail freight service between their hub in Melzo and China since last May.

Rail increasing in the Bologna area

Contship’s new Marzaglia-Melzo service is another piece of evidence of how the Emilia-Romagna region in northern Italy is increasingly embracing the modal shift to rail. Another important rail terminal in the region, the Bologna Interporto terminal, for example, has registered a growth in rail freight and a slight decrease in road transport.

The more than 5,000 trains handled by the terminal in 2022 correspond to an 8,4 per cent increase compared to 2021. In addition, the number of railcars that transited in the Bologna Interporto terminal increased by 12,7 per cent. As the terminal pointed out, truck transportation decreased by 1,1 per cent. According to a spokesperson from the terminal, it is not clear yet whether this means that volumes were moved from road to rail.

Also read:

Kombiverkher partners up with Sogemar in Milan

Marco Raimondi — Fri, 06 Jan 2023 09:47:18 +0000

Kombiverkehr acquired 10 per cent of the Rail Hub Milano (RHM) terminal, owned by Sogemar, a subsidiary of Contship Group. Sogemar will maintain 90 per cent of the total shares in the terminal.
With this new partnership, Kombiverkehr will gain access to the RHM, which has a total yearly capacity of 300,000 units. Moreover, the company will be able to expand its network thanks to the various connections with many destinations from the terminal.

More Kombiverkher investments in northern Italy

With the beginning of 2023, Kombiverkehr has also taken over transshipment operations at the terminal in Mortara, 70 kilometres west of Milan. Equipped with the latest technology, the Mortara terminal has a total surface area in excess of 100,000 square metres and three transshipment platforms, each 650 metres in length.

The facility is fully accessible to electric locomotives. Loading units are transferred using up to four reach stackers, which means the terminal is already working particularly efficiently and economically today. Empty container storage services are offered for forwarding customers. Since the timetable change in December 2022, the Mortara terminal has been despatching 34 trains a week to and from Ghent, Venlo, Rotterdam and Krefeld for Kombiverkehr KG.

Also read: