The history of the Torino-Milano motorway began in the 1920s when Senator Secondo Frola, supported by the Province and Municipality of Turin, the Touring Club, ACI and other public and private bodies set up a committee to promote the feasibility study of the work and begin its preliminary design.
However, the real construction began thanks to Senator Agnelli and Engineer Cartesegna who formed the S.A. Autostrada Torino-Milano, became its Chairman and CEO/General Manager respectively, and in 1929 signed the agreement for the construction and operation of the work.

Senator Agnelli was one of the first to realise the need for a special transport route for motor vehicles, and above all as a factor in the commercial promotion of the automobile. The construction took less than 3 years and the motorway was opened in October 1932.

The motorway provided a new and important connection between Turin and Milan and, together with the Bergamo-Milano, Brescia-Bergamo (already in operation) and Venezia-Padova (under construction) motorways, was part of the planned Torino-Trieste motorway at the foot of the Alps. The railway built in the 19th century had not yet created an adequate, direct and fast connection between the two cities.

The route, essentially rectilinear, was chosen as an intermediate between the 2 possible routes (a “direct” one passing through Vercelli, the other more westerly passing through Novara), so as to satisfy both the interests of the agricultural areas of the lower valley and those of the textile industries in the Biella area.

The motorway begins in Turin, ends in Milan, at the intersection between the Milano-Laghi and the Milano-Bergamo, and measures a total of 125 km, straight for the most part.

The motorway crosses the rivers Dora Baltea, Sesia and Ticino, and the streams Malone, Orco, Elvo, Cervo, Rovasenda, Agogna and Terdoppio. There are also 9 railway crossings, 5 crossings of state roads, 13 crossings of provincial roads, 54 crossings of municipal roads, and 82 crossings of neighbourhood and private roads.

Traffic was always consistent, right from the very beginning of the operation, thanks also to the pricing policy adopted by the Company which applied relatively low toll tariffs; the average number of daily journeys doubled in the short span of seven years.

The flow of vehicles has gone from around 700,000 journeys/year in the first years of the infrastructure’s life to over 35,000,000 today and the infrastructure has changed a great deal, adapting to changing needs.

Particularly, in 1953, following a considerable increase in traffic, the width of the road surface was increased from the original 8 metres to 10 metres, and in 1962, by then on the threshold of Italy’s great industrialisation, the motorway was doubled. Lastly, in the early 1970s, came the configuration with three lanes in each direction.

The motorway is divided into two sections: a so-called “free system”, i.e. where the toll is paid at a barrier and the intermediate junctions have no toll collection station, and a “closed system” where the toll paid depends on the distance travelled.

Along the route of the motorway, at an average distance of about 7 km from each other, 16 access/exit areas with annexed tollbooths were built at the junctions with the most important ordinary roads; special care was taken with the layout of the station buildings.

In total there are 4 interconnections with other motorways, 7 interchanges without a toll collection station, 11 exit stations with a collection station and 2 terminal barriers.

During the 30 months of the construction period, the workforce fluctuated around a daily average of 2,000 workers, reaching a maximum of 3,100; the actual cost of the work was approximately 110 million lira at the time (875,000 lira per km), over 20% lower than the expenditure estimated at the executive project stage.

The work was placed in a traffic basin that was certainly profitable; thanks to a well-conceived financial set-up, private capital (FIAT majority) ended up securing the usufruct of a work that was largely realised with public funds.

The shareholders, however, never earned any dividends on the profits; their investment was, however, largely secured by the value of the motorway, the depreciation amounts of which were regularly set aside for about half of the planned amount.