Commissioned by Rete Ferroviaria Italiana S.p.A. (RFI) to a consortium led by Webuild Group with a 51 per cent stake and Implenia as partner, this latest project would expand by four times, mostly underground, the Verona-Fortezza line at the southern end of the Brenner Base Tunnel along the Munich-Verona railway axis. It would include underground interconnections and other works for Ponte Gardena. It would also improve the Munich-Verona line by adopting standards that exceed the speed and performance limits of the existing line, which currently obliges trains to travel at relatively slower speeds, especially on inclines.

The selection comes after the Group was recently announced as best bidder for a €1.26 billion project to design and build sections B2 and C of the Pedemontant Lombarda highway project, bringing to about €2.3 billion the combined value of the two new possible projects.

Webuild is already working on three major construction sites for the Brenner Base Tunnel, an iconic project for sustainable mobility in Europe. The sites include Mules 2-3, the main section at the Italian end of the tunnel with 75km of tunnels; Lot Tulfes-Pfons that includes underground civil works for 38km of tunnels; and the underground crossing of the Isarco River, near the southern exit of the Brenner Base Tunnel before the Fortezza station.

At a planned 64km, the Brenner Base Tunnel will become the longest railway tunnel in the world and a key part of the Scandinavian-Mediterranean Corridor of the Trans-European Network (TEN-T), aimed at improving railway connections across the continent.