Modal Shift in Border Crossing Freight Transport - the Brenner Corridor as a Pilot

For decades, modal shift of freight transport from road to rail has been a priority of transport policy in many European countries, whose people have been suffering from climate change, air pollution and noise, due to an excess of heavy goods vehicles and an unfavourable land morphology, as it is the case in Alpine regions.

However, most of the efforts made so far have turned out little effective. In contrary, rail has even lost market shares in recent years, despite high infrastructure investments and relevant improvements of logistics.

In Switzerland, combining targeted extensions and improvements of rail infrastructure with m easures curtailing growth of road transport (b ased on internalising external costs) has proven a successful strategy to reach a high modal rail share in Alpine crossing freight transport ? even considering that this goal was achieved not only by modal shift but also by a re-routing of traffic flows to bypass Switzerland. This shows in the modal split of 71 % on rail versus 29 % on road.

"This pilot project shall give evidence that rail can compete successfully with road, if not rest rained by the existing different nat ional regulations.

Actually, the impact of mere infrastructure measures on modal choice is rather weak, except close to capacity limits. But shall congestion on motorw ays be needed o shift transportt o rail? This situation would rather be a set back than a success of transport policy.

The Brenner Corridor Munich ? Innsbruck ? Verona is the very core section of the Scandinavian-Mediterranean Core Network Corridor, following the former TEN-T Priority Axis Berlin ? Palerm o upon the TEN-T Policy Review 2009 ? 2013. This section features the highest road and total transport flows across the Alps: In 2019, only 27 % of the goods were transported on rail, versus 73 % by more than 2,5 million trucks. As a consequence, air pollution jeopardises human health, in particular in Innsbruck and the the lower Inn valley, where inversion accumulates NOx, with critical peaks in winter.

To prepare for an effective shift of goods to rail, the Austrian railways ÖBB has provided, as the first step, the construction of two additional tracks in the lower Inn valley, where different traffic flows, north - south and east - west, long distance and regional, passenger s and freight, overlap. In 2004, Italy and Austria signed the treaty on building the Brenner Base Tunnel Innsbruck ? For t ezza/ Franzensfest e, which is expected to open around 2030.

This means that it will take about a decade more until this project will be operational, while people need relief im m ediately. Also, one has to recognise that, apart from still missing new capacities also in the northern and southern access routes in Germany and Italy, this new tunnel will not shift transport flows to rail by itself. According to the Swiss example, infra­structure would become fully effective only if embedded in a set of political and organisational m easures.

While trucks may pass most European borders without even stopping, this is quite different on rail: Several technical and bureaucratic obstacles impairing rail freight transport also at large scale, must be overcom e, also at Brenner. It will, therefore, be necessary to set measures to improve border crossing technically and legally, the sooner the better. Concretely, there are quite some obstacles concerning border crossing on rail throughout the EU, especially at Brenner:

While Austria uses 162/3 cycles 15 kV alternating current (AC), in Italy 3 kV direct current (DC) is the usual standard;

Brake-tests are mandatory for every freight train entering Italy

In Italy, 2 train drivers are prescribed;

Trains must have tail-end lights in Italy;

740 m long freight trains suffer from certain limitations in Italy;

Train drivers have to be proficient in the language of the other country.

Apart from the cost disadvantage of rail operation against road transport (which will be reduced by future CO2pr icing), it is also such constraints that hamper cross-border freight transport, in the core of Europe and even more at many other borders within the EU.

The pilot project ?Brenner without Borders? launched by Mrs. Barbara Thaler, M EP, together with peers from Bavaria and South Tyrol, and endorsed in autumn 2020, tries to tackle these obstacles, to make rail transport easier , faster and more reliable, forming an attractive alternative to road transport. This pilot project shall give evidence that rail can compete successfully with road, if not restrained by the existing different national regulations.

In the short run, in cooperation of the railway infrastructure managers in Germ any, Austria and Italy and with the European Commission, test freightt rains shall run from Munich to Verona and reversely wit hout stopping at Brenner.

The evaluation in autumn 2022 shall show how rail transport can assert itself, under such im proved conditions, against road transport, in terms of time and costs.

In the long run, the experience gathered shall contribute to est ablishing a Single European Railway Area and, in particular, assigning slots for freight trains at corridor level.

Beyond the m easures of the ?Brenner without Borders? pilot project, an EU-wide harmonisation of technical standards and legal provisions, including the implementation of automatic couplings and a further digitalisation of train operation should be envisaged. In view of border crossing transport, introducing English as a common language of all train drivers would m ake sense, as it is the standard in civil aviation.

Finally, rail will thus achieve a much higher share in the EU transport market, in particular if supported by complementary m easures in the field of road transport. This will reduce CO2and polluting em issions and enhance traffic safety on road. Last but not least , this will also ensure a more efficient exploitation of the Brenner Base Tunnel and effectively relieve Inntal and Brenner motorways, inluding the adjacent population from excessive truck traffic.

Helmut Adelsberger, InfraConceptA