RFI – Rete Ferroviaria Italiana, a company belonging to the Italian State Railways Group – has the public role of Infrastructure Manager, responsible for management and for safety of the rail traffic on the whole national network, track, stations and installations. In its role of Infrastructure Manager, RFI allows the access to the railway network to Railway Undertakings (RU), performs the maintenance, manages the investments for the upgrading of railway lines (High Speed and Conventional) and the technological development. On the international side, RFI promotes the integration of the Italian infrastructure in the European railway network and cooperates with other European Infrastructure Managers. Operational lines are more than 16,700 km long; more than 11,900 km of it are electrified and over 7,500 km are double track.
Idrostudi is in charge for studying and designing solutions for the reduction and/or elimination of energy generated by flowing water, improving the drainage and removing the risk of floods caused by the rail lines. Idrostudi carries out evaluations relating to the fluvial dynamics by studying the trend of riverbed evolution by the geomorphological point of view. The drainage schemes involve the design of inlets for stormwater collection, storm sewers, open channels (trapezoidal or V-shaped ditches), reinforced concrete culverts, rivers and channels slopes improvement, thalweg lowering, rivers cross-sections enlargement and improvement, bridge pier/abutment scour evaluation and protection.
