Expansion of the Rome metro - an urgently required measure in view of endless traffic congestion on city bound and out-bound roads. And a challenging measure at the same time: the archaeological treasuries in the underground must not suffer and life above ground must continue without disturbance. Therefore, plans for the new sections of the B1 and C Lines envisaged greater depths of the new routes.

The decision was made in favor of EPB Shields "Made in Schwanau" - seven machines in total. They offer a high degree of safety when it comes to avoiding settlement and heave during tunnelling in rather soft ground conditions under inner-city housing. For the northern branch of Line B, the future Line B1, two identical Earth Pressure Balance Shields (S-387 and S-388) were employed. The lines to be driven run from the Conca D´Oro station in southern direction up to the connection with Line B. On September 20, 2010 the S-387 reached the target shaft - the future Bologna station - after a total of 3,000 meters of tunnelling and best weekly performances of up to 161 meters. On November 15, 2011 the sister machine S-388 succeeded as well. The largest machine of the Roman septet, the S-544 (Ø 9,766mm), celebrated breakthrough on August 28, 2012.

Line C is devided in seven sections in total which are driven by four identical Herrenknecht Earth Pressure Balance Shields. Up to 180 meters per week were driven by the machines S-497 and S-480 until their breakthrough in April and June 2010. The two sister machines impress with best performaces of up to 500 meters per month until their final breakthrough in August 2020.