Fermo dell'autotrasporto in Sicilia dal 16 al 20 ottobre: come salvare le consegne

Sicily truck stoppage from 16 to 20 October: how to protect deliveries

MONDAY, 28 SEPTEMBER 2026

Five days of stoppage and semi-trailers left in the ports. The reasons: diesel above 2.40 euros and an unpaid Sea Modal Shift. How to plan shipments.

The Sicily truck stoppage is set from 00:01 on Friday 16 October to midnight on Tuesday 20 October 2026: five days in which the companies of the Sicilian Truckers' Committee will stay in their yards and will not collect semi-trailers from the ports. Anyone shipping goods to or from the island has just over two weeks to reorganise deliveries.

Who is stopping the trucks and why

The stoppage was announced on 28 September by the Committee's coordinator, Salvatore Bella. Two reasons were given. The first is the non-payment of the first annual instalment of the Sea Modal Shift, the incentive for moving semi-trailers from road to the motorways of the sea, which according to the Committee the Ministry of Infrastructure had pledged to pay by June. The second is the price of diesel, which the Committee puts above 2.40 euros per litre.

The format is explicit: no pickets and no road blockades. Participating companies will stay in their yards and leave semi-trailers in the ports. On an island where much of the freight travels as unaccompanied trailers, unloaded from the ferry and hooked up by a local tractor unit, this is precisely what affects deliveries.

16-20 October 2026: duration of the stoppage, from 00:01 on Friday to 24:00 on Tuesday, five days.
700-900 euros: the daily loss per truck estimated by the Committee at current costs.
2.369 euros per litre: national average self-service diesel price on 28 September according to MIMIT; 2.420 euros on the motorway network.
From 30 to about 6 cents per vehicle-kilometre: the Sea Modal Shift unit contribution after a cut of almost 80%, due to applications far exceeding the funds.

The Sea Modal Shift issue

The Sea Modal Shift, successor to the Marebonus, grants a contribution to companies choosing sea routes instead of the road. For the islands it is not an environmental incentive but part of the cost of transport: every trip to the mainland goes by sea. With funds well below demand, the contribution per vehicle-kilometre was cut to a fraction of what was planned, and according to the Committee not even that has been paid yet.

High diesel prices make things worse. At the end of September Eni and Ip introduced a cap on pump prices and ministry data show a first decline, but for fleets the cost remains above the levels on which transport contracts of recent months were built.

The Sicily truck stoppage: what it means for importers

The stoppage is not an absolute certainty: the Committee has asked for a meeting with the ministry, and a government response could shorten or cancel it. Nor is it known how many companies will take part. The data does not show that all deliveries will stop, but it signals a concrete risk over a precise window, and it is worth planning as if the stoppage will happen.

For goods arriving in Sicily, the main risk is the trailer unloaded and not collected: it stays in port, with possible demurrage costs, until the stoppage ends. It is worth asking the forwarder whether the carrier handling the final leg belongs to the Committee and, where possible, bringing shipments forward so goods are delivered by Thursday 15 October, or pushing them to after the 21st.

For those shipping from Sicily the reverse applies: a pickup scheduled between 16 and 20 October may slip, with a knock-on effect on sailing times. Anyone with fixed-date deliveries to customers or trade fairs in the second half of October has an interest in moving departure ahead of the stoppage.

After 20 October: the backlog

Even with a stoppage of just five days, the restart is not instantaneous. Trailers piled up in the ports all need collecting at once, and in the following days longer than usual delivery times are reasonable to expect. It is worth allowing a few days' margin for shipments planned in the week after the stoppage too.

With La Merce, goods bound for Sicily in mid-October are shipped on a schedule that gets them there by the 15th, or held at the departure warehouse until the 21st, rather than left in port on an uncollected semi-trailer.