Italferr Advances Sicily’s EUR 12.7 Billion Railway Upgrade with Digital Engineering

• Proeksa Meas
• 25 August 2026
• Construction Focus
• 1138 Views

Italferr is using digital engineering technologies to deliver one of Italy’s largest railway modernization projects, transforming the Palermo–Catania–Messina rail corridor. The EUR 12.7 billion project aims to improve regional connectivity, reduce travel times, and promote sustainable transportation across Sicily.

When completed, travel time between Palermo and Catania will be reduced from three hours to two hours, while the Messina–Catania journey will drop from 75 to 45 minutes. The project is expected to create around 8,000 jobs and involve more than 600 companies.

To manage the project’s complexity, Italferr adopted Bentley Systems’ ProjectWise as its central collaboration platform, coordinating more than 9,800 information models across over 20 disciplines.

The digital workflow reduced federated model update times by 80%, shortened contractor data submission times by 50%, and improved data accessibility by 30%. Other Bentley applications, including OpenRail, OpenRoads, MicroStation, SYNCHRO 4D Pro, and Bentley LumenRT, supported railway design, construction planning, and project visualization.

The integrated digital approach also helped engineers identify and resolve more than 4,500 design clashes before construction, improving efficiency and project quality. The Palermo–Catania–Messina railway project was recognized by Bentley Systems’ Year in Infrastructure (YII) program as a showcase of digital innovation in rail infrastructure.

• Bentley
• ProjectWise
• MicroStation
• Bentley Systems
• OpenRoads
• Synchro 4D
• LumenRT
• OpenRail