50 years of studies to build a showcase work of Italian engineering worldwide

Milan, September 30, 2023 – Over 50 years of work, studies and analyses led us to taking a new step today towards building the Strait of Messina Bridge. The Eurolink consortium, led by the Webuild Group, has in fact delivered, according to the scheduled timings, the updated documentation of the final project of the Strait of Messina Bridge to Stretto di Messina company. The updates detailed in the Eurolink report upgrade the bridge project and its road and railway connections to the most cutting-edge technological developments and construction technique regulations, to increase the safety levels and the environmental compatibility of a work that represents a technological challenge, but that is also a showcase of Italian engineering worldwide.

The update to the final project is the peak of years of coordinated work done by engineers, technicians, university professors and researchers. These experts developed project solutions capable of ensuring the highest levels of safety, efficiency, environmental sustainability, and socio-economic impact for the Strait of Messina Bridge: a work of extraordinary complexity. Particular attention was dedicated to the structure's stability and its wind and earthquake resistance. The bridge was in fact designed to resist extreme winds, much greater than the winds ever registered in the Strait. From a seismic perspective, its structural integrity was verified for events with a magnitude higher than the one of the extraordinary earthquake that took place in Messina in 1908. 

The preliminary studies and the analyses carried out during the years made the area between Messina and Reggio Calabria among the most studied of the Mediterranean. The work will become the world's longest suspended bridge with an overall span measuring approximately 3,660 metres and a central suspended one of 3,300 metres. Its deck will have a width of approximately 60 metres. While the two towers on the ground, which will support the entire structure, will reach a height of 399 metres. The structure will comprise two roadways with 3 lanes in each direction (two normal ones and an emergency one), and a double-track railway line. 6,000 vehicles per hour and up to 200 trains a day will move along the bridge, which will revolutionize the area's mobility and that of the entire South of Italy.