With the ope­ning of the Ceneri Base Tun­nel in Decem­ber 2020, ano­ther piece of the puz­zle for an effi­ci­ent north-south con­nec­tion through Switz­er­land will be com­ple­ted. Howe­ver, the expan­si­on of the inter­na­tio­nal freight cor­ri­dor is delay­ed by at least a deca­de. As a result, the pro­duc­ti­vi­ty gains in inter­na­tio­nal com­bi­ned trans­port are only half as great as ori­gi­nal­ly planned.

The Fede­ral Coun­cil ack­now­led­ges the delay­ed imple­men­ta­ti­on in prin­ci­ple and pres­ents a “packa­ge of mea­su­res to streng­then modal shift” in the modal shift report of 13 Novem­ber 2019. Howe­ver, from the per­spec­ti­ve of the Swiss freight trans­port indus­try, the pro­po­sed mea­su­res are not suf­fi­ci­ent. In order to main­tain the com­pe­ti­ti­ve­ness of UCT (Unac­com­pa­nied Com­bi­ned Trans­port) in tran­sal­pi­ne traf­fic and to con­ti­nue the modal shift, the indus­try is cal­ling for addi­tio­nal measures.

Delayed implementation of the modal shift

With the ope­ning of the Ceneri Base Tun­nel in Decem­ber 2020, the NRLA pro­ject will be offi­ci­al­ly com­ple­ted. Howe­ver, the bene­fits for freight traf­fic in Alpi­ne tran­sit through Switz­er­land will only mate­ria­li­se with a con­sidera­ble time delay. Num­e­rous fac­tors con­tri­bu­te to the fact that the pro­duc­ti­vi­ty of the resour­ces used – loco­mo­ti­ves, per­son­nel, rail­way wagons, etc. – can­not be increased by far to the ext­ent and in the time frame ori­gi­nal­ly planned:

• The delay­ed expan­si­on of the fee­der lines in the north makes it impos­si­ble to ope­ra­te 740 m trains.
• Fre­quent and inter­na­tio­nal­ly uncoor­di­na­ted con­s­truc­tion sites with diver­si­ons and tem­po­ra­ry capa­ci­ty bot­t­len­ecks pre­vent the expec­ted reduc­tion in tra­vel time and lead to con­ti­nuous­ly incre­asing qua­li­ty defi­ci­ts. The con­se­quen­ces are delays and inef­fi­ci­ent use of resources.
• Due to the non-coor­di­na­ted inter­na­tio­nal train path plan­ning, the tra­vel time savings in Switz­er­land will fizz­le out at the bor­ders for the time being.
• The remai­ning gra­di­ents of the line and the ope­ra­tio­nal con­cept of the Gott­hard Base Tun­nel still requi­re the use of a second loco­mo­ti­ve for heavy trains.

Under these con­di­ti­ons, com­bi­ned trans­port ope­ra­tors can rea­li­se at most half of the ori­gi­nal­ly expec­ted pro­duc­ti­vi­ty effects. In order to main­tain the cur­rent volu­me in tran­sal­pi­ne com­bi­ned trans­port and to gain addi­tio­nal traf­fic volu­mes in the medi­um term with regard to the modal shift tar­get, the Swiss freight trans­port indus­try pro­po­ses a lon­ger-term ori­en­ta­ti­on of the modal shift poli­cy until 2030 with addi­tio­nal measures.

Extension of the payment framework for the promotion of transalpine UCT until 2030

In order not to jeo­par­di­se the posi­ti­ve results of the cur­rent modal shift poli­cy, the pro­mo­ti­on of tran­sal­pi­ne UCT must not be sus­pen­ded pre­ma­tu­re­ly. From the mar­ke­t’s point of view, an exten­si­on of the fun­ding mea­su­res until 2030 is neces­sa­ry. Only from 2030 onwards can the plan­ned fur­ther pro­duc­ti­vi­ty effects be expec­ted to be realised.

Fur­ther­mo­re, accor­ding to the moni­to­ring of the Fede­ral Office of Trans­port, the qua­li­ty defi­ci­ts of CT trains have con­ti­nuous­ly increased. While 75% of trains were less than one hour late in 2009, only 55% of all trains were late in the first half of 2019. Today, 12% of trains are even delay­ed for 12 hours or more. These qua­li­ty defi­ci­ts, dri­ven by the expan­si­on of the cor­ri­dor infra­struc­tu­re with num­e­rous con­s­truc­tion sites and capa­ci­ty rest­ric­tions, will con­ti­nue to weigh hea­vi­ly on pro­duc­ti­vi­ty until at least 2030.

The 2030 time hori­zon also crea­tes the neces­sa­ry invest­ment secu­ri­ty. Trans­port com­pa­nies will invest in con­tai­ners and cra­neable trai­lers, ope­ra­tors in rail wagons and ter­mi­nals, and rail­way com­pa­nies in loco­mo­ti­ves if lon­ger-term use of these capi­tal goods is ensured.

Subsidies for operating compensation for UCT amounting to CHF 55 million annually from 2024

An effi­ci­ent rail­way infra­struc­tu­re in com­bi­na­ti­on with train path pri­ces at the level of the neigh­bou­ring count­ries Ger­ma­ny and Italy enables Switz­er­land to ope­ra­te com­bi­ned trans­port on its own account – this gui­ding prin­ci­ple still holds true. Howe­ver, the ope­ra­tio­nal and infra­struc­tu­ral con­di­ti­ons on the north-south cor­ri­dor through Switz­er­land do not meet these requi­re­ments eit­her at pre­sent or in the coming years. During this peri­od, com­bi­ned trans­port ope­ra­tors and rail­way com­pa­nies will be able to increase pro­duc­ti­vi­ty by a maxi­mum of half of the ori­gi­nal­ly plan­ned value when the NRLA is completed.

It is true that the Swiss track price revi­si­on 2021 – which lowers the base price for freight trans­port and intro­du­ces dis­counts for long trains – makes a signi­fi­cant con­tri­bu­ti­on to sup­port­ing UCT. Nevert­hel­ess, a gap of about half of the ope­ra­ting com­pen­sa­ti­on of the refe­rence year 2018 remains, amoun­ting to CHF 110 million.

Based on this ana­ly­sis of the situa­ti­on, the freight trans­port indus­try demands that unac­com­pa­nied com­bi­ned trans­port (UCT) be sup­port­ed with ope­ra­ting con­tri­bu­ti­ons of CHF 55 mil­li­on per year until 2030. This will enable UCT to main­tain the cur­rent modal shift volu­me and, if neces­sa­ry, to lar­ge­ly absorb traf­fic growth. Should the frame­work con­di­ti­ons impro­ve more quick­ly than assu­med – for exam­p­le through a signi­fi­cant impro­ve­ment in qua­li­ty or a sus­tainable opti­mi­sa­ti­on of the inter­na­tio­nal time­ta­bles – addi­tio­nal traf­fic volu­mes could con­ti­nue to be gai­ned for UCT.

With the expec­ted fur­ther growth of UCT until 2030, the reduc­tion path of sub­si­dies per con­sign­ment would again be signi­fi­cant­ly impro­ved. Whe­re­as in 2011 an avera­ge of CHF 173 in ope­ra­ting sub­si­dies was paid per shifted truck­load, in 2018 this figu­re was still CHF 116. Accor­ding to the ideas of the freight trans­port indus­try, this amount would drop fur­ther to CHF 40–45 per shifted truck by 2030.

Expansion of access routes in the north

The NRLA con­cept for pro­mo­ting rail freight trans­port depends on effi­ci­ent, high-per­for­mance access lines to the base tun­nels in order to ensu­re the sup­p­ly of Euro­pe’s hig­hest-demand eco­no­mic loca­ti­ons. After the com­mis­sio­ning of the 4 m cor­ri­dor, the situa­ti­on will be as follows:

• 3 access lines in Italy – via Chi­as­so, Luino and Domodossola
• 2 lines in Switz­er­land – via Gott­hard and Lötsch­berg base tunnels
• 1 access line north of Basel – via Karls­ru­he – Mann­heim – Colo­gne – Benelux

An alter­na­ti­ve must urgen­tly be crea­ted for the bot­t­len­eck in the north. The only effi­ci­ent alter­na­ti­ve route (flat track) is the route on the left bank of the Rhine via France. It is opti­mal for the high-volu­me Bel­gi­um – Italy route. In addi­ti­on, there is a direct con­nec­tion route with the cor­ri­dor on the right bank of the Rhine, which ser­ves to redu­ce the risk.

Howe­ver, these rou­tes do not yet cor­re­spond to the cor­ri­dor para­me­ters of the Swiss tran­sit axis and the­r­e­fo­re curr­ent­ly only carry a low volu­me of traf­fic. In order to make the capa­ci­ties on these alter­na­ti­ve rou­tes more usable for UCT through Switz­er­land, the Zeebrugge/Antwerp – Stras­bourg – Basel line and the Wörth – Lau­ter­bourg – Stras­bourg cross con­nec­tion must be upgraded to the para­me­ters 740 m train length, 4 m cor­ner height, 2000 t with one loco­mo­ti­ve, ETCS. This would also crea­te a sys­tem in the north with two fee­der lines and an alter­na­ti­ve route on the left bank of the Rhine.

The expan­si­on of a cor­ri­dor-com­pli­ant alter­na­ti­ve route via France is likely to be mana­geable in terms of costs. It is very much in the inte­rest of Switz­er­land and its tran­sit shift poli­cy. To imple­ment it, Switz­er­land needs a poli­ti­cal initia­ti­ve tog­e­ther with France and Bel­gi­um, which should lead to an inter­na­tio­nal trea­ty on infra­struc­tu­re deve­lo­p­ment. Par­lia­ment should call on the Fede­ral Coun­cil to take the cor­re­spon­ding initia­ti­ve in the form of an inter­na­tio­nal trea­ty. In addi­ti­on, the expan­si­on of the Rhine Val­ley rail­way in Ger­ma­ny must be pur­sued with vigour. The com­ple­ti­on of this con­trac­tual­ly agreed capa­ci­ty increase has been post­po­ned until 2040.