Gotthard Base Tunnel (#9): Avoid shifting traffic back to the road

The freight train derailm­ent on 10 August 2023 cau­sed serious dama­ge to the Gott­hard Base Tun­nel. SBB the­r­e­fo­re intends to mas­si­ve­ly redu­ce the capa­ci­ty of sus­tainable rail freight trans­port in favour of lei­su­re traf­fic at weekends with the time­ta­ble chan­ge on 10 Decem­ber 2023. This could lead to a shift of up to 15% of rail freight back onto the road.

This is the issue:

• New time­ta­ble con­cept can­cels rail freight train paths
• Sta­tu­to­ry modal shift tar­get jeopardised
• Alter­na­ti­ve for pas­sen­ger trans­port available
• NEAT gra­du­al­ly misu­s­ed for other purposes
• No dia­lo­gue at eye level
• Avo­i­ding a shift back to road trans­port together

New train path concept cancels rail freight train paths

Accor­ding to the media update of 2 Novem­ber 2023, SBB assu­mes that the Gott­hard Base Tun­nel will not be fully ope­ra­ble for pas­sen­ger and freight trains again until Sep­tem­ber 2024. The repair work is likely to take far lon­ger than ori­gi­nal­ly expec­ted. SBB offi­ci­als have announ­ced that with the Decem­ber time­ta­ble chan­ge, signi­fi­cant­ly more and fas­ter pas­sen­ger trains will be tra­vel­ling through the Gott­hard Base Tun­nel at weekends. Among other things, they are can­cel­ling a time slot for rail freight traf­fic from 7.30 to 9.00 a.m. on Fri­day mor­nings and allo­ca­ting it to pas­sen­ger traffic.

Statutory modal shift target jeopardised

The unaut­ho­ri­sed train path con­cept has serious con­se­quen­ces for the natio­nal modal split. One of our mem­bers assu­mes that 10% to 15% of com­bi­ned freight trans­port con­sign­ments will be shifted back to the roads and that sup­pli­es to Tici­no can no lon­ger be fully gua­ran­teed at weekends. Con­s­truc­tion work can also not be car­ri­ed out in the afo­re­men­tio­ned time window.

This deve­lo­p­ment con­tra­dicts Switzerland’s poli­cy for modal shift. Accor­ding to this poli­cy, the Fede­ral Coun­cil wants to shift tran­sal­pi­ne freight trans­port from road to rail. The sta­tu­to­ry tar­get of 650,000 lorry jour­neys was alre­a­dy cle­ar­ly missed in 2022: 880,000 lor­ries were still tra­vel­ling through the Swiss Alps.

Alternative for passenger transport available

For repre­sen­ta­ti­ves of the ship­ping indus­try, SBB’s new train path con­cept is all the more absurd as there is a sen­si­ble alter­na­ti­ve for pas­sen­ger trans­port: from an eco­lo­gi­cal per­spec­ti­ve in par­ti­cu­lar, lei­su­re tra­vel­lers should use the moun­tain route at weekends and leave the Gott­hard Base Tun­nel to the freight trains. After all, due to their heavy loads, they con­su­me much more elec­tri­ci­ty over the moun­tain route than pas­sen­ger trains. Ship­pers depend on a relia­ble trans­port infra­struc­tu­re seven days a week to sup­p­ly goods to Switzerland.

NEAT gradually misappropriated

The Gott­hard Base Tun­nel is part of the New Rail Link through the Alps (NEAT “Neue Eisen­bahn-Alpen­trans­ver­sa­le”). It was desi­gned for rail freight trans­port. The com­mon goal of the Euro­pean Union and Switz­er­land with the NEAT was and is to pro­mo­te freight trans­port by rail. The pro­ject was rea­li­sed at a cost of CHF 23 bil­li­on and 55% of it was finan­ced by the per­for­mance-rela­ted heavy vehic­le char­ge (LSVA). By rest­ric­ting the urgen­tly nee­ded train paths for freight trans­port, the NEAT is once again being misused.

No dialogue at eye level

Accor­ding to SBB, “… careful con­side­ra­ti­on was given to the allo­ca­ti­on of train paths through the Gott­hard Base Tun­nel during the repair work in col­la­bo­ra­ti­on with repre­sen­ta­ti­ves of the freight trans­port sec­tor and pas­sen­ger rail­way under­ta­kings as well as the inde­pen­dent train path allo­ca­ti­on body.” Howe­ver, the new train path con­cept was deve­lo­ped wit­hout the freight trans­port indus­try and its cus­to­mers. The sub­se­quent dia­lo­gue also pro­ved to be tough. In addi­ti­on, the voice of SBB Cargo was miss­ing at the media con­fe­rence on 2 Novem­ber 2023. It is unclear whe­ther and how the con­cerns of the freight trans­port sec­tor were taken into account within the com­pa­ny. The ship­ping indus­try is alar­med by this one-sided approach and sees the pre­vious­ly con­s­truc­ti­ve coope­ra­ti­on with SBB being jeopardised.

Working together to avoid a shift back to the road

We at the VAP stron­gly urge SBB to invol­ve all those invol­ved in rail freight trans­port in the plan­ning of train path allo­ca­ti­on and to refrain from making one-sided state­ments about the smooth hand­ling of freight traf­fic through the Gott­hard Base Tun­nel. These favour a pre­ma­tu­re migra­ti­on of freight trans­port to the road, which must be avo­ided at all costs. After all, it is gene­ral­ly dif­fi­cult to rever­se such a move. SBB should not play freight and pas­sen­ger trans­port off against each other and favour road trans­port in the process.