Road Freight in the Lombardy-Veneto Corridor
Italian road freight transport increased by 5.2% year-on-year in 2024, reaching 1,110.5 million tonnes nationally according to Istat data. Northern Italy accounts for approximately 68.2% of all domestic road-borne goods — a proportion that has remained stable for more than a decade, reflecting the geographic concentration of manufacturing in the Po Plain.
The A4 motorway (Turin–Trieste) remains the primary freight artery. Between Milan and Brescia the carriageway carries a daily average of over 80,000 vehicles, a significant portion of which are heavy goods vehicles. The corridor between the two cities is among the most congested freight routes in Europe during peak morning hours, with delays adding measurable costs to just-in-time supply chains serving the mechanical and metalworking industries of Brescia province.
Bergamo province, directly adjacent to the north, contributes its own freight generation: the leather goods, textile, and light engineering districts of the Seriana and Brembana valleys funnel production down to the A4 junction at Dalmine. This convergence of two dense industrial zones on the same highway segment defines the structural bottleneck of the corridor.
Intermodal Development at Montirone
The Montirone terminal, located in Brescia province, operates services connecting the Brescia area directly to Rotterdam by intermodal train. This service, running through the Brenner corridor, represents one of the few direct rail-road switches for Lombardy's manufacturing exporters that bypasses the Milan hub entirely. Frequency on the Montirone–Rotterdam axis has been increasing, with a Venice–Montirone connection also launched in recent years.
A more ambitious proposal involves the construction of a new interporto at Cortenuova, in the province of Bergamo. The project, structured as a joint venture between the Vitali Group and MSC, is designed primarily as a retroport for the major Adriatic and Ligurian ports: Genova, Ravenna, Venice, and Trieste. The design prioritises rail-to-rail transfers to minimise truck movements within the facility — a departure from the format of older Italian inland terminals where road access dominates.
The Province of Bergamo has set out five conditions for supporting the Cortenuova project, among them adequate connections to the A35 Brebemi motorway and the A4, as well as direct rail access to Orio al Serio airport's cargo apron. The latter condition reflects a desire to integrate air freight flows with intermodal ground operations — a configuration rare in Italy but common at large Northern European logistics hubs.
Orio al Serio: Air Cargo Dynamics
Bergamo's Orio al Serio International Airport functions as one of Italy's more significant cargo airports. In the first ten months of 2025, cargo volumes at Orio grew by 6.8% compared to the same period in 2024, substantially outperforming the national airport cargo growth rate of 1.7%. The airport's position as a secondary Milan hub — with lower slot costs than Malpensa — has made it attractive for express courier operators including DHL, which maintains a significant hub presence there.
The contrast with Brescia's Montichiari airport is stark: Montichiari recorded an 18.6% contraction in cargo in the same period, driven primarily by the restructuring of courier lines and a reconfiguration of postal volumes. The divergence between the two airports illustrates how cargo routing decisions — made by a small number of express operators — can concentrate or disperse volumes rapidly across a regional airport network.
Northern Italy accounts for approximately 68.2% of domestic road-borne goods — a proportion reflecting the geographic concentration of manufacturing in the Po Plain.
Infrastructure Investment Context
The discussion around the Cortenuova interporto occurs within a broader Italian infrastructure investment cycle. The PNRR (National Recovery and Resilience Plan) allocates funds to intermodal logistics nodes, with northern Italian terminals among the primary beneficiaries. However, project timelines have extended: environmental permitting, municipal plan amendments, and coordination between provincial and national rail authorities have added delays to several planned facility expansions across Lombardy and Veneto.
The Brescia–Bergamo corridor's road infrastructure faces a specific challenge: the A35 Brebemi motorway, built as a bypass corridor, has underperformed traffic forecasts since its opening, leaving the older A4 as the dominant route. Whether an expanded intermodal terminal at Cortenuova would redirect meaningful truck volumes to rail — thereby reducing A4 congestion — remains a contested projection among logistics planning consultants in the region.
Sector Composition and Freight Character
The goods moving through this corridor differ materially from the fast-moving consumer goods that dominate southern Lombardy's distribution parks. Brescia's freight profile is heavy: steel coils from the Vallecamonica and Valsabbia mill districts, machine tools, molds, and automotive components moving between tier-1 suppliers and final assembly plants. These flows favour large-capacity vehicles and full-truckload operations, and are less suited to parcel-focused intermodal services than the lighter manufacturing outputs of other Italian regions.
Bergamo's freight character is somewhat more varied: food and beverage products from the Val Cavallina and Franciacorta sub-regions, fashion accessories, and electronic components for the appliance industry. The airport's cargo growth reflects in part the shift of fashion-adjacent goods from sea freight to air, driven by shorter product cycles and the premium placed on lead time reduction in high-value segments.
Sources: Istat Freight Transport 2024; MIS Srl intermodal data; Radio Bruno Lombardia cargo statistics; Bergamo Corriere della Sera reporting on Cortenuova. Data reflects publicly available figures as of May 2026.