One year before the completion of the New Rail Link through the Alps and the four-metre corridor from Basel to Northern Italy, the Swiss freight services sector is gathering together at the freight tunnel at Bözberg and SBB Cargo’s Noah Container. The transport companies and the freight industry have signed a joint position paper on the shifting of trans-Alpine transit traffic and on the strengthening of cooperative arrangements between modes of transport.
The entire freight services sector is placing great importance on shifting trans-Alpine freight services off the roads and onto the rails. The Noah Container from SBB Cargo represents a shift from road to rail with the aim to increase the proportion of railways in the European freight services market to 30% by 2030. Therefore SBB, the Swiss Utility Vehicle Association ASTAG, the Union of Public Transport VöV and the freight industry association VAP signed a joint position paper at Bözberg on 20th September 2019. Sector representatives were in agreement: “High-performance, needs-oriented, well-organised freight services are vitally important to supply chains in Switzerland and Europe. The economy and population are reliant on innovative, ecological and future-oriented haulage contractors. This is the only way to ensure that the post is delivered on time, department store shelves are filled and hospitals are supplied with vital medicines.”
The double-track Bözberg tunnel is one of the largest tunnel projects in the construction of the four-metre corridor for semitrailers from Basel to Northern Italy. Together with the opening of the Ceneri Base Tunnel in Switzerland it completes the New Rail Link through the Alps (NEAT) at the end of 2020.
