Gotthard Base Tunnel (#6): FOT pragmatically supports freight traffic

After the freight train acci­dent in the Gott­hard Base Tun­nel, the Fede­ral Office of Trans­port (FOT) is pro­mo­ting rail freight trans­port with tan­gi­ble mea­su­res: The tun­nel may only be used for freight trains. The com­pen­sa­ti­on per train ope­ra­ted in unac­com­pa­nied com­bi­ned trans­port (UCT) will soon be increased to up to CHF 1,100. We, as the asso­cia­ti­on of the ship­ping indus­try, would like to express our sin­ce­re app­re­cia­ti­on for this. By the way: our voice also appli­es to for­eign shippers.

This is what it’s all about:

• Gott­hard base tun­nel only open for rail freight traffic
• Hig­her com­pen­sa­ti­on for tran­sal­pi­ne UCT
• The VAP says thank you

Gott­hard Base Tun­nel open for freight trains only
Since the reope­ning of the east tun­nel of the Gott­hard base tun­nel, it has been available exclu­si­ve­ly for freight traf­fic. Around 100 train paths are pos­si­ble every day. A fur­ther 30 trains per day run through the moun­tain sec­tion. This means that tran­sal­pi­ne rail freight traf­fic has a total of 130 train paths at its dis­po­sal every day. By com­pa­ri­son: in 2022, an avera­ge of 120 trains crossed the base tun­nel every day.

Thanks to this mea­su­re, the freight rail­ways can hand­le rail freight traf­fic prac­ti­cal­ly wit­hout rest­ric­tions. Admit­ted­ly, the rou­ting over the moun­tain route is asso­cia­ted with con­sidera­ble addi­tio­nal expen­se. But it main­ly affects dome­stic traf­fic that is not depen­dent on the 4‑metre corridor.

Hig­her com­pen­sa­ti­on for tran­sal­pi­ne UCT
The FOT is com­mit­ted to tran­sal­pi­ne rail freight traf­fic and in par­ti­cu­lar tran­sit traf­fic (see “The FOT streng­thens rail freight traf­fic through the Alps”). The com­pen­sa­ti­on per train ope­ra­ted in UCT will be increased by CHF 200 to up to CHF 1,100 in the coming weeks. The FOT also does not want to redu­ce the com­pen­sa­ti­on per con­sign­ment for 2024, but will intro­du­ce a sym­bo­lic reduc­tion of CHF 1 to CHF 57 per con­sign­ment. In this way, the FOT is sup­port­ing tran­sal­pi­ne UCT in a very prag­ma­tic way. Against the back­ground of the dif­fi­cult con­s­truc­tion site situa­ti­on on the access rou­tes and the tense eco­no­mic situa­ti­on, the FOT is refrai­ning from con­ti­nuing on the cur­rent cour­se to redu­ce com­pen­sa­ti­on for UCT.

The VAP says thank you
The FOT deser­ves a big thank you for this prag­ma­tic sup­port. It streng­thens the joint and tar­ge­ted efforts of the enti­re indus­try to make the capa­ci­ty rest­ric­tions on both the Gott­hard and Lötsch­berg axes as beara­ble as pos­si­ble. We see it as a sign of a com­mon poli­cy effort to sup­port modal shift in tran­sit traffic.