Overview
The Mediterranean Corridor is the main east-west axis in the TEN-T Network south of the Alps. It links the Spanish ports of Algeciras, Cartagena, Valencia, Castellὀn, Tarragona and Barcelona with Madrid and along the Mediterranean coastline through southern France- Marseille and Nice until Italy Genoa and La Spezia. It runs from Marseille towards Lyon across the Alpes and northern Italy via Turin, Milan, Verona, Bologna, Padova, Venice and Trieste. It links also with Ljubljana and a branch via Croatia (Rijeka, Zagreb), to Budapest and to Lviv in Ukraine. The Corridor is approximately 3 000 km long. It covers rail and road, airports, ports, freight multimodal terminals, RRT's and, in Northern Italy, also the Po river inland waterway. Key projects are the gauge change to European standard guage in Spain, the new high-speed line Montpellier-Perpignan, the Lyon-Turin railway base tunnel, the second rail track on the Koper-Divaca line and the overall modernisation of railways infrastructure in the Eastern part of the Corridor.
Challenges
A key section of the corridor is the new cross-border rail link between France and Italy (Lyon-Turin). In addition, the cross-border links with Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary and Ukraine need to be taken into account. Multimodal connections with ports in Spain and France have to be developed and some railway sections in Italy and France need to be upgraded in order to remove bottlenecks. The coexistence of two gauges (1668 mm in Spain and 1435 mm in the other countries) is another challenge for this corridor, as is the full integration of the newest member of the Corridor – Ukraine. In coming years, more attention is necessary to develop further multimodal freight terminals along the Mediterranean European Transport Corridor. A better connectivity of the maritime ports of the Corridor with the hinterland should be achieved, contributing to a modal shift to railways.
Mr Wojciech Sopinski, Advisor of the European Coordinator
wojciech [dot] sopinskiec [dot] europa [dot] eu (wojciech[dot]sopinski[at]ec[dot]europa[dot]eu)
Tel. +32-(0)2-299 9926
Postal address:
Mediterranean CNC / TEN-T
Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport
Rue de Mot 28
1049 Brussels
Belgium
Information Note
Information Note CEF Call 2014 Mediteranean
Maps
Workplans
1st Mediterranean TEN-T Corridor work plan
2nd Mediterranean TEN-T Corridor work plan
3rd Mediterranean TEN-T Corridor work plan
4th Mediterranean TEN-T Corridor work plan
5th Mediterranean TEN-T Corridor work plan
Studies
Mediterranean Study - 2nd Phase
Study on the Mediterranean TEN-T Core Network Corridor / 3rd Phase – Loop II / Final Report (2022)
Study on the Mediterranean TEN-T Core Network Corridor / 3rd Phase / Final Report (2023)