A company
born out of a public rail transport tender based on transversal alliances and
the promotion of the territory. Today, Trenitalia Tper boasts a team of 1,500
people and a turnover exceeding €300 million. In the meantime, they are writing
new pages for the future in the name of mutual trust between the company and
the clients. For FARE INSIEME, Giampaolo Colletti interviewed Alessandro
Tullio, CEO of Trenitalia Tper and President of Mobility and Logistics at
Confindustria Emilia.
by Giampaolo Colletti
@gpcolletti
Photocredit: Giacomo Maestri e Francesca Aufiero
“We're
always taking a train for somewhere. At the end of the platform,
hands and
handkerchiefs waving.” This was what was sung and played by Gilbert Becaud, a
20th-century French pianist who took a lot of trains in his lifetime - albeit
steam ones at the time. After all, trains are a story unto themselves. They are
a metaphor including many things. If you think about it, they are by definition
a connection between cities and people, bustling with stories that interconnect
them. Even more. They are a thread that runs along a territory creating a
drawing, a network, parts of lives that connect, today in an even more modern
and sustainable manner. And that same thread re-creates the communities,
supporting them and giving them strength. The story we are about to tell has a
lot to do with those trains that depart and arrive but, most of all, with
people, their voices, their gazes, their stories that combine with yet other
stories.
Company
profile. This is the story of Trenitalia Tper, a company set up in the midst of
the pandemic emergency. Its roots stretch out beyond regional borders, but it
has an indissoluble bond with that Emilia that is eager to do things. We find
ourselves in Bologna and, more precisely, in that industrial plant that ensures
the maintenance of the Rock and Pop trains, which constitute the majority of
the current fleet. But there are also other facilities, all of which in
Emilia-Romagna, both in the Bologna Centrale station - where the operating room
with the central equipment system is located - and in other ten facilities all
over the territory. Trenitalia Tper boasts 1,500 employees with a growth of
over 80 employees in 2024. The turnover exceeds €300 million. The business
deals with the public train transport within the region, with connections to
the nearby regions. Just think that we are talking about 900 trains circulating
every day! An impressive figure! “Up to over 175 thousand people travel on our
trains during a winter weekday and, in 2023, there were over 44 million
passengers, 10 million of which in the summer period alone,” reports Alessandro
Tullio, CEO of Trenitalia Tper and President of Mobility and Logistics at
Confindustria Emilia. Innovation, technology, skill. These are what lie at the
basis of the company’s work. “It is a hugely complex sector, with a fundamental
social responsibility as it must ensure a constitutional right. Our people are
aware of the impact they can have on the lives of our clients and we are
working so that this awareness improves the travel experience of those who
choose to use our trains day after day. Commitment: this is another key word
for us, at all levels. We focus on valuing people also for their talent and
passion, even beyond their professional role,” says Tullio. Trenitalia Tper is
the combination of two companies that have guaranteed a service to the
territory for many years. That is why we have never stopped being railwaymen.
“Railwaymen represent one of the corporations that express and live the sense
of the Group more than others. Our experience was made better by the
possibility of being born again as a new company with an incredible challenge,
i.e. being the first to start with the new regional trains that had never been
used prior to 2020. It is thanks to the tender concerning public railway
transport by Regione Emilia-Romagna - the first of its kind in Italy - that
Trenitalia and Tper, which constituted a consortium at the time - decided to
win together. It is one of the biggest tenders for the supply of railway
vehicles and the leader as regards the regional transport sector,” stresses
Tullio. Over 9 new Rock and Pop trains have been delivered in just two years
since 2020, entirely manufactured in Italy. A unique generational chain, and
one achieved during the pandemic.
The future.
The future runs fast. Just think about the arrival of the latest comfortable
and sustainable trains that are marking the start of a new period. “The change
in the lifestyle of workers and tourists completed the system mutation. That is
why the opportunities to link regional trains to the territory have increased.
The increase in urban traffic and the motorway networks highlighted the
indisputable advantage of moving by train, a solution that is increasingly
reliable, comfortable and, most of all, inexpensive,” stresses Tullio. What
about the future? It is made up of involving experiences, sustainable travel
and accessible digitisation. And then there is that mutual trust that makes the
difference. “It is the trust between people travelling for business or leisure
and those who must guarantee the excellence of the service,” says Tullio. After
all, now more than ever, markets are endless dialogues for excellent
organisations.
https://podcast.confindustriaemilia.it/
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