Italy's motorway operator unveils 7.5 bln euro investment plan

Source: Xinhua| 2020-01-18 01:52:52|Editor: yan
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ROME, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- The private company managing most of Italy's highway network on Friday unveiled a multi-year strategic plan comprising investments worth 7.5 billion euros (8.3 billion U.S. dollars).

The plan would stretch over the period 2020-2023.

The funds would be spent "on new investment and on maintenance, with capital expenditure to almost triple and maintenance expenditure to increase by 40 percent compared with the previous four years," Autostrade per l'Italia S.p.A. (ASPI) said in a statement, adding that the plan would create about 1,000 new jobs in the country.

The plan focuses on "the overall modernization of the network, involving large-scale and growing investment in new infrastructures ... and on the digitalization of assets and operations processes," among other goals.

The company said it would allocate about 5.4 billion euros to the network -- "almost tripling the amount invested in the previous four years, amounting to approximately 2.1 billion euros" -- while maintenance expenditure would increase to two billion euros, up 40 percent.

"The plan also covers the widening and upgrade of 30 kilometers of existing network, to be opened to traffic by 2023," it added.

As for the creation of new jobs, the company said the most sought-after professional profiles would be those of "engineers, technicians, operating personnel, motorway personnel and toll collectors."

Another relevant part of the plan is the "development, in partnership with (technology company) IBM, of an artificial intelligence platform, which will be used by the end of 2020 to monitor the 1,943 bridges and viaducts along the network," the company stated.

This would also include the deployment of drones equipped with automated flight plans "to further improve the monitoring of bridges and viaducts, whilst high-speed video cameras, laser technologies and geo-radar will also be used to conduct checks on tunnels."

Italy's highway operator came under heavy fire after the dramatic collapse of a major bridge in the northern city of Genoa in August 2018, which claimed dozens of lives.

The company was suspected of not taking enough care of the highway infrastructures in terms of security checks, restoration and modernization.

Since then, Italy's political authorities have been discussing revoking the concession to Atlantia -- the company controlling Autostrade per l'Italia -- but no decision has yet been reached.

Commenting on ASPI's announcement on Friday, a major Italian newspaper wondered whether the new strategic plan would be enough to end the deadlock with the Italian government.

In a long interview published by the daily La Repubblica on Friday -- ahead of the official unveiling of the plan -- ASPI Chief Executive Officer Roberto Tomasi said the company "would go bankrupt if the concession is revoked." (1 euro = 1.11 U.S. dollar)

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