The third leg of the table of the national productive economy is logistics: Anfia, Federauto and Unrae want to relaunch it to accompany Italian industry and trade towards a new spring. Which they imagine in the name of efficient, more profitable and more ecological. The three associations have suggested a six-point plan to support a world worth 1.25 million jobs (27 billion wages a year), 344 billion in total turnover (equivalent to 20% of GDP) and a tax revenue of 76.3 billion.
In the Belpaese, but they are not in the Belpaese, the problems are always the same: a circulating park that is no less than dated and an infrastructural lack that does not allow companies to project themselves into the future with a lower environmental impact. The length of service of industrial vehicles with total ground weight over 3.5 tons (almost 700,000) is close to 13.5 years. And the Euro 0, 1 and 2 are a third, against 7.2% in Germany and 13.3% in France. The conversion was slowed down by the crisis, which also affected volumes: registrations have fallen by 40% in the last 13 years, plummeting from nearly 35,500 in 2007 to just over 20,250 in 2020.
It was during the pandemic that it became clear how important modern and well-equipped logistics is. According to the three organizations, it is necessary to invest in the future of the “strategic sector for the country’s economy”. And not all six points of the plan impose costs on the public administration: the recall of Anfia, Federauto and Unrae is not accidental in the timing, given that the government is working on the one hand on what has been defined a “very complex decree on simplification ”And on the other to investments in the future. “We cannot miss the opportunity offered by the funds provided for by the PNRR for a definitive modernization of the transport sector in a more modern and environmentally friendly perspective”, underlined Gianandrea Ferrajoli, Federauto Truck Coordinator.
On the one hand, the associations are asking for fiscal and market incentives for new, safe and ecological vehicles, the Euro VI, and for alternative power supplies to favor decarbonisation, “penalize” older vehicles (before Euro IV, for example by excluding the deductibility of repair costs, increasing costs for changes of ownership, reshaping the road tax and making revisions more stringent), strengthen the network for the distribution of biofuels, develop the electric and hydrogen charging network, give the green light to vehicles up to 18 meters in length (150 centimeters of extra load capacity to reduce the number of trips) and to provide for the mandatory inspection also in private workshops. At stake are competitiveness and safety, understood not as air quality, but also on the road. “Only 21.6% of industrial vehicles in circulation are equipped with the safety devices made mandatory from 1 November 2015 (AEBS for autonomous emergency braking and LDW for lane maintenance)”, complains Luca Sra, Anfia Delegate for freight transport.
“The transition towards a completely sustainable transport system is the desirable goal to which our sector dedicates considerable efforts and investments – argued Paolo A. Starace, president of the Industrial Vehicles Section of Unrae – but the spread of electric, hybrid, hydrogen and biofuels is still very limited to effectively contribute to the decarbonisation objectives ”.
