High-speed railway: average cost in Italy €61m per km. €10m in Spain, €9m in Japan

The price “may serve as an indicator of potential mismanagement-related issues or irregularities” according the the EU Anti-Corruption Report

For sure they will tell us it is because of the Appennines (you know, the famous mountains between Rome and Naples…) or because of seismic reasons (you know, always take them into account here, while in Japan they don’t know anything on the matter). Very Italian reasons, while France, Spain and Japan build their railways only on flat, untroubled and natural levels. That’s why in Italy high-speed railways cost €61 million per kilometre, and in Japan only €9.8million, in Spain €9.3million and in France €10.2million.

This is revealed in a paragraph of the EU Anti-Corruption Report, Annex 12, dedicated to Italy (well worth a reading): “High-speed railway is among the most expensive infrastructure works and gives rise to considerable discussion as to unit price comparisons. According to research, one kilometre of high-speed railway track on the Paris-Lyon line costs around EUR 10.2m, from Madrid to Seville it is EUR 9.8m; from Tokyo to Osaka, EUR 9.3m, while from Rome to Naples, EUR 47.3m, from Turin to Novara, EUR 74m; from Novara to Milano, EUR 79.5m and from Bologna to Florence, EUR 96.4m. In total, the estimation was of an average cost in Italy of EUR 61 million per km. 76 While the differences in cost do not prove anything in themselves, they may serve as an indicator, to be corroborated with others, of potential mismanagement-related issues or irregularities in public procurement procedures.”