Hitachi Rail partners with City of Naples to deliver Metro Line 6 to passengers
Passenger service begins today on the new Line 6 Metro in Naples, using Hitachi Rail’s innovative digital signalling and rolling stock as part of a €200m contract.
Approximately 6km long, the new Line 6 connects 8 stations across the city, including 4 entirely new ones. The line will significantly cut journey times compared to driving, helping to reduce harmful air pollution and CO2 emissions.
While the new line will initially use existing rolling stock, Hitachi Rail will also introduce 22 new trains from 2025. Manufactured at Hitachi Rail’s sites, including in Naples and Pistoia, the new vehicles will have state of the art telecommunications and onboard digital signalling, as well as an innovative air-conditioning system that will significantly increase passenger comfort in all conditions and seasons.
An important part of this major project is the construction of the new railway depot for train maintenance and parking, which is essential to ensure high operating standards for the entire line. The depot will occupy an area of approximately 110,000 square meters and will include a new control room for the underground line. It represents an element of urban redevelopment and has been designed with the aim of achieving high standards of sustainability through the use of new materials, technologies and installations aimed at energy efficiency.
Luca D'Aquila, COO Hitachi Rail Group and CEO Hitachi Rail Italia: "Today is a day of celebration for an important milestone achieved. It has been a long and complex journey that Hitachi Rail, as the concessionaire of the City of Naples for the design and construction of Line 6, has been able to harmonise and guide.
"The line that has inspired our work over the years has never changed: to contribute to the mobility of Neapolitan citizens. We have done this by constantly deploying our innovations and the best available technologies."
Gaetano Manfredi, Mayor of Naples: "With the inauguration of Line 6, a project started some 40 years ago amidst various difficulties and continuous upgrades is finally completed. At last, an infrastructure work of high strategic value is handed over to the city. A further piece of the city's mobility. In fact, the new metro line guarantees an increase in the number of interchange points in the city's transport network, making it possible now to connect the western area with the city centre and, in the near future, to reach the airport area, which is currently outside the track connections. This is a significant step towards improving urban mobility, with reverberations in terms of strengthening the infrastructure network and as an opportunity for further impetus towards an increasingly sustainable, modern and efficient dimension of Naples'.
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