Ferrovie dello stato

Italy covers a surface area of 301,338 km², inhabited (as at 31 March 2009) by 60,114,021 people. This territory is served by a railway network of 16,500 km, with more than 2,400 stations. Every day 87,000 railway workers help to manage this network and run 9,200 trains. In one year almost 500 million passengers and about 80 million tons of goods are transported.
Ferrovie dello Stato S.p.A. is the Holding and parent company of a group of companies, each of which focuses on a particular sector of activity. The most important are Rete Ferroviaria Italiana, which manages railway infrastructures, Trenitalia, which is responsible for passenger transport, and, through the Cargo division, Grandi Stazioni (link: www.grandistazioni.it), which manages the 13 most important stations of the network, and Centostazioni, which manages 103 medium-large stations.
In 2008 the Ferrovie dello Stato Group managed to reach a breakeven point one full year ahead of the objectives of the 2007-2011 Industrial Plan, and also embarked on the High Speed project. Thanks to the increase in operating revenue (+1.7%) and reduction in operating costs (-6.1%) the Group was able to post a profit of 16 million euro, while the gross operating margin exceeded 1 billion euro. The introduction of new technologies and reorganisation processes made it possible to raise productivity (traffic unit per worker) by 5%.
For Ferrovie dello Stato social responsibility does not just mean fulfilling legal obligations in the social and environmental spheres, but also investing in human capital, knowledge, the environment and relations with other economic and social actors. The fundamental principles on which the F.S. Group bases its actions are an integral part of the Code of Ethics that has been followed by the company for many years.
The Social Policies and Relations with Associations department has worked within the Holding since 2001. One of its main tasks is to search for unified solutions to the problems of social hardship that are often found in and around railway stations, in synergy with the public administration, charity organisations and associations. The Social Policies department is one of the co-founders of the European Charter for the development of social initiatives in stations.