In the canton of Zurich, clean excavated material from excavation pits with a volume of more than 25,000 cubic metres must be transported away by rail by the builder-owner from 1 July 2021, otherwise a replacement fee is owed. The companies HASTAG (Zürich) AG, Schneider Umweltservice AG and Eberhard Bau AG have merged to form the newly founded company TerraRail Modalsplit AG as of 8 March 2022 to offer this service.
This is what it’s all about:
- Canton of Zurich: ordinance on the transport of excavated material and aggregates by rail (BTV).
- TerraRail: Provider for transport of excavated material and aggregates by rail.
- In the interests of fair competition: invitation to tender for RUs
TerraRail Modalsplit AG offers the transport of excavated material and aggregates by rail at four locations. In doing so, they make use of their many years of experience and the ideal locations with rail connections of the three companies. Traction between the sites and the unloading point(s) is currently provided by SBB Cargo.
The excavated materials are transported by rail from the agglomeration area and deposited or recycled in a landfill. Ideally, raw material such as gravel is transported again directly. The offer also includes the development of a transport concept, which must be submitted with the building application.
TerraRail is currently using SBB Cargo for the transport by rail. However, other RUs were also considered. TerraRail Modalsplit AG acts independently of the providers in the market and obtains several offers during the bidding and production planning process. The most suitable offer is confirmed. Therefore, changing constellations are to be expected in this area.
It is expected that there will be competing offers, as TerraRail’s offers are placed under competitive conditions. In fact, several awards have already been made to other suppliers in the market. This indicates the existence of competition.
Rail transport is attractive when the rail infrastructure leads directly from the place of loading to the place of unloading and over longer distances. However, this is rarely the case in the modal split area. As a rule, an additional reloading process is required, which increases the effort and requires loading places. For this reason, from TerraRail’s point of view, legal requirements make sense in order to increase the modal split share of rail transport and to relieve the roads. At the same time, TerraRail is working to continuously improve the competitiveness of this transport chain.
The VAP approves of the bundling of the competence of private-sector companies and the organisation of a transport chain based on the strengths of all partners. The three shippers, in their role as specialists in earthworks and mining and operators of suitable transhipment platforms in their sidings and now as rail forwarders, are shifting transports to the railways and relieving the burden on the roads. Competition and the pursuit of real competitiveness compared to pure road transport are viewed positively. It is desirable that shippers have a choice and that supply security is increased by the existence of several rail providers.
The solution found in the canton of Zurich with the replacement levy on builders is a compulsory measure designed in a market economy, where the revenue flows into the general state budget and is not earmarked for a specific purpose. We would welcome a targeted reimbursement to the market players, for example in the form of financial support from the canton for the construction of transhipment platforms or the development of new multimodal logistics solutions.
For other products, a comparable model is much more difficult to implement, as the necessary transhipment platforms are lacking. Here, cantonal transport and spatial planning is called upon to ensure that locations are well connected by road and rail.
In order to promote further positive relocations, the VAP also assumes an advisory role for the cantons. In doing so, the cantons benefit from the association’s extensive expertise, many years of experience and far-reaching network, which is firmly anchored in the transport industry.
