Its southern end is at Firenze Santa Maria Novella railway station and it connects with the Florence–Rome high-speed line.

This line, which had been completed in 1934, had been built as a superior alternative to the nineteenth century Pistoia–Bologna railway, providing both higher speeds and additional capacity to traffic.

[4] However, by the 1980s, it was becoming clear that the capacity of both of these railways were becoming saturated, and that the existing infrastructure would not be able to accommodate much more growth in demand, particularly in light of changing operational circumstances.

While capable for the era in which they were built, neither line conformed with the increasingly high standards of modern European railways, and there was a political desire for Italy's core railway network to be upgraded to these same standards to improve service levels and to better integrate with the continental high speed network.

[4] Even in light of this willingness to construct a new national high speed railway network, the Bologna-Florence route was recognised as posing particular difficulty.

[4][6] Accordingly, the excavation methods used often varied between individual tunnels, which some requiring preparatory reinforcement along with other mitigatory measures in areas of instability or other challenging characteristics.

Defined plans that conformed with ISO 9002 quality assurance systems were produced to guide the excavation phase of each area.