Strait of Messina Bridge have made the span more than 60% longer than the Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge in Japan—the largest suspension bridge in the world at . Plans called for four traffic lanes (two driving lanes and one emergency lane in each direction), two railway tracks and two pedestrian lanes. In order to provide a minimum vertical clearance for navigation of , the height of the two towers was to be . This would have been taller than the Millau Viaduct in France (currently the tallest bridge in the world at ). The bridge's suspension system would have relied on two pairs of steel cables,
Millau Viaduct the Eiffage TP company for the concrete part, the Eiffel company for the steel roadway (Gustave Eiffel built the Garabit viaduct in 1884, a railway bridge in the neighbouring Cantal "département"), and the Enerpac company for the roadway's hydraulic supports. The engineering group Setec has authority in the project, with SNCF engineering having partial control. was responsible for the job of the bituminous road surface on the bridge deck, and Forclum () for electrical installations. Management was handled by Eiffage Concessions. The only other business that had a notable role on the building site was Freyssinet, a subsidiary of the