Switzerland invests billions in shift from road to rail

By Heinz-Peter Dietrich Feb 22, 2007, 12:41 GMT

Geneva - Unrivalled projects to improve crossing the Alps are currently underway in Switzerland.

Soon, dozens of huge lorries will be travelling through the massive, north-south barrier posed by the Alps at one-minute- intervals. Switzerland is investing billions of its own funds in order to improve transport links through the Alps, for its own benefit - but also helping the entire European Union as well.

Whereas the EU has spent many long years in discussions and issuing declarations of intent, Switzerland is going ahead and putting words into deeds. The aim: many more lorries are to be transported by rail.

At present, around 1.2 million lorries are counted on the roads each year. This number is to be reduced to 650,000.

'The policy aim has been democratically upheld by a referendum,' Transport Minister Moritz Leuenberger told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa about the goal of shifting lorries from the road and onto trains.

And the billions needed for it are already being earned from the heavy vehicle road fee (LSVA).

'This makes transport more expensive and encourages the shift,' Leuenberger added in reference to the LSVA.

Initially, a 35-kilometre base tunnel beneath the Loetschberg mountains is to be inaugurated punctually in mid-2007 to relieve freight transit traffic through the Alps and to help contain the ever-growing flood of lorries.

But in addition, the main project focuses on the Gotthard base tunnel which the Swiss are now drilling through the Gotthard massif and which at 57 kilometres will be the world's longest railroad tunnel. It is set to be completed by 2017.

Both tunnels are part of an integrated concept aimed at shifting trans-alpine traffic from road to rail. The amount of freight transported on Swiss roads has nearly doubled in the past 25 years.

The Alps are one of the biggest obstacles to freight traffic in Europe. Around 110 million tons of freight were transported through the mountains in 2005.

All lorries heading to Italy are forced to wind their way through tunnels or via passes in Austria, France or Switzerland. The road capacities are by no means up to the task and the environmental burden to the sensitive, high-altitude region is huge and rising further.

While lorries have become cleaner as a result of stricter exhaust norms in the past years, the gains made have nearly been wiped out due to their growing numbers.

To aggravate the situation even further, one of the most important Alpine connections in the EU, the Brenner Pass linking Austria and Italy, is the subject of constant rows.

Switzerland's ambitious NEAT project, the official name of this mammoth trans-Alpine rail project, stresses sustainability. And this is going to cost some big money - an estimated 15 billion euros' worth of investments will be needed to complete the Gotthard base tunnel by 2017, and the costs are rising by the month.

By then, capacities for freight trains would have doubled. In addition, they will then be able to travel on the flat stretch of rail between such major port cities as Rotterdam or Hamburg to Brindisi in Italy, needing only one locomotive.

This would put an end to the current competitive disadvantage of rail transport - namely the time-consuming process of changing locomotives or adding a further engine in order to tackle ascents.

The Swiss maxim is that freight trains could soon regain market share from road transport and the country is already showing its EU neighbours the way: two-thirds of transit freight traffic through Switzerland is by rail, as to only one-fifth in Austria and France.