Brenner Pass | RailFreight.com

Italy and Austria at odds about shift to rail along Brenner axis

Marco Raimondi — Fri, 01 Dec 2023 09:22:23 +0000

Austria wants Italy to increase the share of goods moved on the railways when being transported across their shared border, which is currently 26 per cent of the total. The Austrian government is doing so by increasing road tolls and banning the transit of trucks, which are piling up and forming interminable queues at the Brenner border. However, the Italian Road Freight Transport and Logistics Association (ANITA) is claiming that, despite the existing will to transport more goods on trains, there are insufficient slots available and terminals are saturated.
“Austria should set its own house in order instead of asking bordering countries for more efforts”, Thomas Baumgartner, ANITA’s delegate for the Brenner area pointed out in a statement. According to the association, data for 2021 from Statistik Austria shows that “the Austrian internal traffic of goods transferred by rail is only equal to 6.9 per cent of the total”. What ANITA is lamenting is that the limitations placed on road freight do not apply to local traffic, which they consider as “intolerable discrimination”.

The situation gets more complicated considering that the Brenner rail station is not functioning at full service. Since March, three tracks have been closed as they have been deemed unsafe by Italina infrastructure manager Rete Ferroviaria Italiana. A solution to this problem will likely be the Brenner Base Tunnel, which will not be ready until 2032. In mid-October, the Italian government, under the figure of Transport Ministry Matteo Salvini, pledged to the EU Court of Justice to intervene against the limitations put in place by Austria regarding road freight. This is the first time that Italy is resorting to the EU Court against another Member State, as the Minister stated. This decision was applauded by ANITA as well as various other transport associations, especially in northeastern Italy.

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Brenner Pass closed from 6 to 23 August, freight trains go via Villach

Marco Raimondi — Mon, 10 Jul 2023 09:30:17 +0000

The Brenner Pass, the main rail border crossing between Italy and Austria, will be closed for “extensive work in the railway tunnels”, between 6 and 23 August, as The Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) said. Freight trains will be redirected through the Tarvisio-Villach border crossing, near the countries’ borders with Slovenia.
ÖBB also highlighted that this affects the Rolling Highway (ROLA), which connects Trento with Wörgl and will be closed as well. It is not yet clear which specific works will be carried out, However, as the Italian press state agency ANSA claimed, the costs revolve around 15 million euros.

The Italy-Austria Rolling Highway

The ROLA removes around 1,300 trucks every day from the roads connecting Italy and Austria, for a total of almost 450,000 per year. The Trento-Wörgl connection extends into Germany up to Regensburg. Closing the ROLA for two weeks, during which many Italians and Austrians already fill the roads for their holidays, might further increase the congestion.

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RCG’s Wörgl-Trento ROLA service goes daily

Nikos Papatolios — Tue, 06 Apr 2021 10:33:08 +0000

After some complete suspension periods, Rail Cargo Group’s Rolling Road (ROLA) service between Wörgl in Austria and Trento in Northern Italy is getting back on tracks with six weekly roundtrips. Travelling through the Trans-Alpine Brenner Pass, the service will keep contributing to cargo’s modal shift from road to rail in the vulnerable Tyrol area.
The service is not new. RCG used the Wörgl-Trento route in the past; however, due to Covid-19 restrictions, the route’s services got reduced and even stopped for specific periods. The latest ban occurred between 4 December 2020 and 17 January 2021. Following this date, ROLA services have revived and seen a growing demand. That is why RCG doubles the number of weekly roundtrips from three to six from 6 April onwards.

Focus on protecting the territory

According to RCG, the extended service will impact the life quality of Tyrol residents as little as possible. All ROLA wagons are running with quiet brakes to protect the area’s fragile balance and abide by the specific corridor’s long-term transport rules.

Specifically, from 2024 onwards, the Kufstein-Brenner railway line passing through Tyrol will transform to one of Europe’s ‘Quieter Routes’. This means that every passing train from the territory must be operating with silent brake pads to reduce noise effects. The specific development practically means that there will be a noisy wagons ban from the area that will equal a halving of noise levels in freight transport.

Wörgl-Brenner route becomes busy

The Wörgl-Brenner corridor constitutes the primary route for ROLA trains between Italy and Austria. Despite the difficulties during 2020, February 2021 saw an immediate increase of transported trucks, equal to almost 30 per cent. Currently, estimations show that the route handles around 24 roundtrips per day.

Nevertheless, RCG reassured its customers that business is not a real problem since there is enough secured capacity for more cargo. However, the company recommends that whoever is interested in ROLA transporting should book in advance to avoid waiting times. Moreover, RCG firmly believes that an extra motive for possible customers will be the reduced prices per truck in the service that cost nine euros less compared to the previous year.

Covid-proof

The Rail Cargo Group also takes some extra measures regarding protection from Covid-19. Since last year’s suspension of services was mainly to prevent the pandemic’s spread, the Austria-based company takes the extra mile to secure operations’ smooth development.

To achieve that, the company constantly monitors the wagons’ occupancy during the trips to ensure that drivers accompanying their trucks always keep their distances and other protection measures. Moreover, all drivers must use FFP2 facemasks, which are considered the safest. Finally, all shared spaces like toilets or cabins get disinfected after every single-direction trip.

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Kombiverkehr launches three more connections, this time via Gotthard

Nikos Papatolios — Fri, 26 Feb 2021 10:03:29 +0000

As of 25 February, Kombiverkehr’s customers will be able to book three more connections to and from Mortara in northern Italy. The new services will run through Gotthard’s four-meter broad corridor and will reach the cities of Krefeld (Germany), Rotterdam (Netherlands), and Ghent (Belgium). Trains to and from Mortara will run up to five times per week on each route. In addition to containers and swap bodies, semi-trailers’ transportation with a P400 profile will also become possible in the foreseeable future.
Together with its partner Hupac, the intermodal company already serves its European network with weekly connections from the Italian terminals in Busto and Novara. Mortara, which locates in the region of Pavia, is an excellent alternative since it also offers efficient short-road connections to Milan’s northern Italian economic centre. With the addition of Gotthard’s corridor, Kombiverkehr will now serve its network using all three major trans-Alpine routes. The other two are Brenner and Tauern corridors.

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Gotthard Base Tunnel. Photo credit: Hannes Ortlieb

New opportunities

“With the trains to and from Mortara in northern Italy, we are strengthening our services via the Gotthard corridor, which will become increasingly important for our customers,” said Kombiverkehr’s General Manager Alexander Ochs. The new service will provide customers with additional options for transporting their goods, characterised by diversity and on-point connectivity with central European hubs.

“Combined with Brenner and Tauern’s services, the service through Gotthard will contribute to Kombiverkehr’s strategy to overtake the most important European routes between Italy and Germany, Benelux and further Scandinavia”, added Peter Dannewitz, Head of Sales at Kombiverkehr.

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Subsidies for truckers northern Italy for shift to rail

ProMedia Group — Mon, 09 Sep 2019 08:10:47 +0000

From now until the end of this year, road hauliers in the Italian province of Bolzano are subsidised if they put their cargo on rails. This financial incentive was offered last year and will be offered again this year, the authorities of the northern Italian region of Süd-Tirol / Alto Adige said.

The Ripertizione Mobilità traffic service has allocated 1.5 million euros for this. The aim is to shift cargo that is now transported via road to rail, in particular international shipments -accompanied or unaccompanied- between the Brenner and Salurn, both in northern Italy.

138,000 units

The scheme was also in force in the second half of last year. With a subsidy of 1.25 million euros from this province, 138,000 units (containers, swap bodies, trailers) were shifted to rail. A further 6,600 units were subsidised to move onto the Rollende Landstraße, in which complete combinations were put on the train.

The grant, which only applies to carriers based in Europe and operating in the Bolzano region, can be requested via transport.trasporti@pec.prov.bz.it.

Italy to upgrade railway in Brenner Pass

Jose Gutierrez — Fri, 03 May 2019 06:00:07 +0000

Italy has promised to modernise the railway of the Brenner Pass , which crosses the Alps on the border between Italy and Austria. At the same time, it is asking Austria to make an end to the newly imposed highway toll for truckers, banning trucks with an Italian origin due high pollution levels.

This was stated in a manifesto by the Northeast Italian Chambers of Commerce, which explained that they need a transitory period not only to upgrade the track fleet but also the rail track. Furthermore, they want to build a new rail tunnel in the Brenner Pass, expected to be completed by 2027.

Discrimination

In the manifesto they note that the new tolls impact Italian transport costs and create a discriminatory situation, as Austrian operators do not have to pay them. The Italian representatives proposed EU sanctions against the Austrian authorities, especially in the Austrian region of Tyrol. They explained that the Austrian local and regional governments should have discussed its new rules with the EU authorities, setting a timeframe for the measures while the new rail tunnel is built.

Several German Chambers of Commerce have supported the manifesto, as the Brenner Pass is an essential corridor for international trade across Italian, Austrian and German territories since the Roman Empire.