Autumn session 2024: transport policy on the agenda

In the autumn ses­si­on from 9 to 27 Sep­tem­ber 2024, Par­lia­ment dis­cus­sed various trans­port poli­cy issues. Par­ti­cu­lar atten­ti­on was paid to the revi­si­on of the Freight Trans­port Act (GüTG). This bill stands in stark con­trast to SBB Cargo’s de facto solo effort.

That’s what it’s all about:

• Rail infra­struc­tu­re 2025–2028
• Rösti and Bur­kart warn against dra­stic tariff increases
• Fur­ther finan­cial injec­tion for SBB
• Relo­ca­ti­on tar­gets for the expan­si­on of the NEAT fee­der lines

Maintain and further develop rail infrastructure from 2025 to 2028

On 23 Sep­tem­ber 2024, the Natio­nal Coun­cil was the first cham­ber to dis­cuss Fede­ral Coun­cil pro­po­sal 24.045 ‘Finan­cing the ope­ra­ti­on and main­ten­an­ce of the rail­way infra­struc­tu­re, sys­tem tasks in this area and invest­ment con­tri­bu­ti­ons to pri­va­te freight trans­port faci­li­ties in the years 2025–2028’. On 15 May 2024, the Fede­ral Coun­cil reques­ted a total pay­ment frame­work of CHF 16.442 bil­li­on for the upco­ming tasks, around CHF 2 bil­li­on more than in the pre­vious period.

With this pro­po­sal, the Fede­ral Coun­cil is set­ting the tar­gets for the ope­ra­ti­on, main­ten­an­ce and tech­ni­cal deve­lo­p­ment of the rail­way infra­struc­tu­re finan­ced by the fede­ral govern­ment for the years 2025 to 2028. For the third time, finan­cing will come enti­re­ly from the rail­way infra­struc­tu­re fund (BIF). The Natio­nal Coun­cil appro­ved the cre­dit while rejec­ting a mino­ri­ty moti­on to increase the cre­dit by 500 million.

At the same time, the Fede­ral Coun­cil pro­po­sed exten­ding the exis­ting frame­work cre­dit for invest­ment con­tri­bu­ti­ons to pri­va­te freight trans­port faci­li­ties by one year from 2021 to 2024. This is becau­se the rea­li­sa­ti­on of major pro­jects has been delayed.It also envi­sa­ges a four-year com­mit­ment cre­dit of CHF 185 mil­li­on for invest­ment con­tri­bu­ti­ons to faci­li­ties for the hand­ling of goods in com­bi­ned trans­port (CT) and to sidings. This is to be used to finan­ce the con­s­truc­tion, expan­si­on and rene­wal of the fol­lo­wing components:

• CT tran­ship­ment faci­li­ties and sidings in Switz­er­land that com­ply with the con­cept for the trans­port of goods by rail in accordance with Artic­le 3 GüTG
• CT tran­ship­ment faci­li­ties abroad that are neces­sa­ry to achie­ve the modal shift objec­ti­ve in accordance with Artic­le 3 GVVG
• Port faci­li­ties for the tran­ship­ment of CT goods

The Natio­nal Coun­cil appro­ved the Fede­ral Council’s pro­po­sal by 194 votes to 1. The mat­ter will now go to the Coun­cil of States.

Controversial developments in the debate on rail freight transport

On 24 Sep­tem­ber 2024, the Coun­cil of Sta­tes was the first cham­ber to dis­cuss the total revi­si­on of the GüTG. We repor­ted on the latest deve­lo­p­ments in our blog post «Deba­te on Swiss rail freight trans­port threa­tens to derail».

With the revi­si­on, the legis­la­tor wants to enable more com­pe­ti­ti­on on the rail­ways, streng­then sin­gle wagon­load trans­port and pre­vent mar­ket-dis­tort­ing dis­cri­mi­na­ti­on. It wants to moder­ni­se the out­da­ted sys­tem through auto­ma­ti­on and digi­ta­li­sa­ti­on, con­ti­nue to pro­vi­de finan­cial sup­port for the con­s­truc­tion and rene­wal of pri­va­te freight trans­port faci­li­ties and reim­bur­se the HVF to freight pay­ers as a new hand­ling fee.

After a detail­ed dis­cus­sion, the Coun­cil of Sta­tes voted in favour of the bill by 35 votes to 3 with 3 abstentions.

This decis­i­on is in the con­text of the cur­rent mood of Swiss rail freight cus­to­mers. SBB sub­si­dia­ry SBB Cargo has been caus­ing con­s­ter­na­ti­on among ship­pers for seve­ral weeks with dis­pro­por­tio­na­te price increa­ses – while offe­ring the same or worse ser­vices. The con­se­quen­ces of this con­tro­ver­si­al beha­viour are fatal. Many pri­va­te-sec­tor ship­pers are being forced to shift up to 10% of their freight trans­port volu­me back to the roads becau­se trans­port by rail is no lon­ger pro­fi­ta­ble. SBB Cargo, on the other hand, offers no wil­ling­ness to dis­cuss the deve­lo­p­ment of alternatives.This beha­viour con­tra­dicts the efforts of the GüTG revi­si­on and the con­sen­sus that was agreed bet­ween poli­ti­ci­ans, busi­ness and the state rail­way befo­re the par­lia­men­ta­ry con­sul­ta­ti­on. In his speech, Coun­cil­lor of Sta­tes Thier­ry Bur­kart, FDP/AG, who is also Pre­si­dent of ASTAG, empha­sis­ed that SBB’s pri­cing poli­cy is not only geared towards what is per­haps neces­sa­ry, but also towards what is pos­si­ble in the mar­ket in order to avoid a shift back to road trans­port despi­te sub­si­dies. In his speech, Fede­ral Coun­cil­lor Rösti also refer­red to three key ele­ments in this con­text: loa­ding flat rates, increased effi­ci­en­cy and pri­ces, which should be opti­mi­sed. These three areas are nee­ded to ensu­re pro­fi­ta­bi­li­ty in the end and to pre­vent any relo­ca­ti­on. Based on his dis­cus­sions with important ship­pers, he belie­ves that the situa­ti­on can be cal­med to some ext­ent and a solu­ti­on found.

• You can also watch Fede­ral Coun­cil­lor Rösti’s speech at our Annu­al Gene­ral Meeting.

Further financial injection for the Swiss Federal Railways

On 11 and 19 Sep­tem­ber 2024, the Coun­cil of Sta­tes and on 16 and 23 Sep­tem­ber 2024, the Natio­nal Coun­cil again dis­cus­sed the Fede­ral Council’s pro­po­sed amend­ments to the Fede­ral Act on Swiss Fede­ral Rail­ways (SBBG). After the last dis­cus­sion, dif­fe­ren­ces remain­ed regar­ding Art. 20 on finan­cing instru­ments. SBB should now be able to finan­ce invest­ments out­side the area of the Infra­struc­tu­re divi­si­on entit­led to com­pen­sa­ti­on by means of inte­rest-bea­ring and repa­ya­ble loans from the Fede­ral Tre­asu­ry as long as it com­pli­es with the net debt requi­re­ments defi­ned in the Fede­ral Council’s stra­te­gic objec­ti­ves. If SBB’s bor­ro­wing requi­re­ments for these invest­ments exceed the net debt requi­re­ments set out in para. 1, they must be cover­ed by capi­tal con­tri­bu­ti­ons from the Con­fe­de­ra­ti­on. The Fede­ral Coun­cil shall apply to the Fede­ral Assem­bly for the neces­sa­ry capi­tal injec­tions as part of its budget.

The Coun­cil of Sta­tes came to the con­clu­si­on that the finan­cial sup­port for SBB should be redu­ced. In the second round of deli­be­ra­ti­ons on Wed­nes­day, it voted in favour of a reduc­tion to CHF 850 mil­li­on wit­hout oppo­si­ti­on and then released the spen­ding brake. Mari­an­ne Maret (centre/VS), Pre­si­dent of the Trans­port Com­mit­tee, explai­ned that SBB had reco­ver­ed more quick­ly from the cri­sis, while the fede­ral government’s finan­cial situa­ti­on was dete­rio­ra­ting. The Natio­nal Coun­cil fol­lo­wed the Coun­cil of Sta­tes and appro­ved the redu­ced capi­tal sub­s­idy for SBB. It also iro­ned out the dif­fe­ren­ces on loans by agre­e­ing to a more fle­xi­ble upper limit for vault loans.

The Coun­cils’ decis­i­ons must be view­ed in a broa­der con­text. In order to res­to­re balan­ce to the finan­cial imba­lan­ce of the fede­ral ope­ra­ti­on, a majo­ri­ty of the Natio­nal Coun­cil agreed in the 2023 win­ter ses­si­on to grant SBB a one-off capi­tal injec­tion in the amount of the long-distance trans­port los­ses of CHF 1.15 bil­li­on to redu­ce debt. Sub­si­dia­ry SBB Cargo, which has alre­a­dy recei­ved exten­si­ve finan­cial sup­port in the wake of the Covid pan­de­mic, will also bene­fit from this finan­cial injec­tion. It is about to con­clude a ser­vice agree­ment to com­pen­sa­te for its net­work traf­fic, which it obvious­ly can­not hand­le on its own. The pri­va­te sec­tor play­ers, on the other hand, have neither recei­ved Covid funds nor do they have non-essen­ti­al resour­ces and invest­ments to streng­then their invest­ment capacity.

Balance sought between modal shift targets for the expansion of the NEAT feeder lines

The three moti­ons 24.3389 «Advan­cing the expan­si­on of the NRLA fee­der lines on the left bank of the Rhine in the inte­rests of modal shift», 24.3390 «Sta­bi­li­sing com­bi­ned trans­port on the north-south axis by pro­vi­ding buf­fer tracks» and 24.3391 «For a grea­ter modal shift to medi­um trans­port distances» came befo­re the Coun­cil of Sta­tes on 24 Sep­tem­ber 2024. The sub­mit­ting Com­mit­tee for Trans­port and Tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons wants to opti­mi­se the fee­der lines to the NRLA.

The Coun­cil of Sta­tes adopted the first two moti­ons, but rejec­ted the third. Their adop­ti­on pre­sup­po­sed a modal shift man­da­te for dome­stic traf­fic as well, which is not pro­vi­ded for in the constitution.

In prin­ci­ple, we wel­co­me effi­ci­ent rou­ting on the north-south cor­ri­dor in terms of secu­ri­ty of sup­p­ly, alter­na­ti­ve capa­ci­ties in the event of road­works, punc­tua­li­ty and qua­li­ty of rail freight trans­port. VAP Pre­si­dent and mem­ber of the Coun­cil of Sta­tes Josef Ditt­li alre­a­dy expres­sed this opi­ni­on at the anni­ver­sa­ry mee­ting with for­mer Fede­ral Coun­cil­lor Adolf Ogi in autumn 2021 (see blog post «25 years of the “Trea­ty of Luga­no” – a look into the future»).

Howe­ver, we cri­ti­cise the one-sided focus of the moti­ons on CT. Those respon­si­ble for the modal shift are thus miss­ing the oppor­tu­ni­ty to pro­mo­te other forms of mul­ti­mo­dal trans­port bey­ond sin­gle wagon­load trans­port. This is in clear con­trast to the joint poli­cy of the DACH sta­tes (Ger­ma­ny-Aus­tria-Switz­er­land) to rapidly intro­du­ce digi­tal auto­ma­tic cou­pling (DAK). Fur­ther­mo­re, the moti­ons con­tra­dict the revi­si­on of the GüTG (see above), as they pur­sue envi­ron­men­tal and ener­gy poli­cy objec­ti­ves not only in import, export and dome­stic trans­port, but also in transit.

We at the VAP demand that the Fede­ral Coun­cil also cla­ri­fy and pre­sent the poten­ti­al with other mul­ti­mo­dal modes of trans­port in the next modal shift report. Qua­li­ty moni­to­ring should also be intro­du­ced for con­ven­tio­nal goods trains, as has been the case in CT for years. The distinc­tion bet­ween com­bi­ned and con­ven­tio­nal trans­port must be abo­lished. The GüTG intro­du­ces finan­cial sup­port for import, export and dome­stic trans­port. In tran­sit, howe­ver, only unac­com­pa­nied CT (UCT) should con­ti­nue to recei­ve finan­cial sup­port. We belie­ve that this approach is not com­pa­ti­ble with the objec­ti­ves of the GüTG. This is becau­se the con­sti­tu­tio­nal man­da­te in the Güter­ver­kehrs­ver­la­ge­rungs­ge­setz (GVVG) defi­nes the modal shift in tran­sit as a shift to rail, not to UCT. Only Art. 8 GVVG intro­du­ces the addi­ti­on ‘pri­ma­ri­ly’ for the pro­mo­ti­on of UCT, to the detri­ment of other mul­ti­mo­dal logi­stics solu­ti­ons with a rail com­po­nent (see box).