CIPRA representatives:

Personal tools

  Search filter  

News

Alps overrun by traffic

Mar 21, 2012 / alpMedia
Never before have such large quantities of goods been transported through Switzerland as in 2011. The title of "Transit Route Number 1", however, goes to the Brenner Pass.
Image caption:
Europa Bridge on the Brenner autobahn: the Italian-Austrian pass is Transit Route Number 1 in the Alps © Rhilber (wikimedia)
The goods traffic crossing the Alps via Switzerland has now broken two records, according to a report published in mid-March by the Swiss Federal Department of Environment and Traffic. In 2011, for the first time ever, road and rail saw over 40 million tonnes of goods transported through the Swiss Alps, at a time that saw Europe in the midst of an economic crisis. Nor have such quantities of goods ever been transported by rail before: 25.6 million tonnes, or nearly 64%. Meanwhile, with some 1.3 million journeys made on the roads through the Alps, Switzerland overshot its 2011 target of one million, set by law, for a modal shift.
Throughout the Alps as a whole, in contrast to Switzerland, most goods go by road. In its fourth annual report, published last December, the "Permanent Observatory for Road and Rail Goods Traffic in the Alpine Regions" states that in 2010 nearly 194 million tonnes were transported over the Alps, of which nearly 66% was by road. Rail transport represented just 10.5% in France, while in Austria the figure was around 34%.
The Brenner Pass is the busiest Alpine pass: in 2010 over 1.8 million tonnes more goods were carried over the Austrian-Italian border than in 2011 on all Swiss Alpine transit routes combined, i.e. 41.9 million tonnes. Road transport of goods over the Brenner increased further last year, by 3.5%.

Source and further information:
http://ec.europa.eu/transport/road/doc (fr), www.bav.admin.ch/verlagerung/01529/index (d), www.vcoe.at/de/presse/aussendungen-archiv (d), www.news.admin.ch/dokumentation/00002/00015 (d)