Strengthen modal shift and diversity of supply

A mar­ket-ori­en­ted varie­ty of ser­vices and the role of rail freight in modal shift are up for deba­te. After SBB Cargo announ­ced a fur­ther savings pro­gram­me, Charles Juil­lard, mem­ber of the Coun­cil of Sta­tes, and the Com­mis­si­on for Trans­port and Tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons SR have resor­ted to the instru­ment of the pos­tu­la­te and cal­led on the Fede­ral Coun­cil to exami­ne and report. Both issues are curr­ent­ly being dealt with in the Coun­cil of States.

Postulate 21.3198: Better use of railway facilities

The pos­tu­la­te 21.3198 «Freight trans­port. Why not make bet­ter use of exis­ting rail­way faci­li­ties?» by Charles Juil­lard, mem­ber of the Coun­cil of Sta­tes for the Euro­pean People’s Party (EPP), ins­tructs the Fede­ral Coun­cil to sub­mit a report on the deve­lo­p­ment of freight trans­port in Switz­er­land – espe­ci­al­ly by rail. In doing so, it should exami­ne the mea­su­res that could favour a shift of freight trans­port from road to rail. This demand arose against the back­ground that in recent years the num­ber of ser­vice points and faci­li­ties for the trans­fer of goods from road to rail has been ste­adi­ly redu­ced, favou­ring road trans­port for reasons of sim­pli­ci­ty and time savings. This deve­lo­p­ment con­tra­dicts the man­da­te of modal shift and noise abatement.

Details on Pos­tu­la­te 21.3198 «Freight trans­port. Why not make bet­ter use of exis­ting rail­way faci­li­ties?» can be found here.

Postulate 21.3597: Future of freight transport

With the pos­tu­la­te 21.3597 «Future of freight trans­port», the Com­mit­tee for Trans­port and Tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons of the Coun­cil of Sta­tes ins­tructs the Fede­ral Coun­cil to sub­mit a report on the future direc­tion of rail freight trans­port poli­cy by the end of the first quar­ter of 2022 at the latest. The Com­mis­si­on demands details on the import and export of goods by rail and the con­tri­bu­ti­on of rail freight trans­port, modal shift and sus­tainable ori­en­ta­ti­on of the sup­p­ly chain. It wants an assess­ment of SBB Cargo’s mar­ket-ori­en­ted and area- and cost-cove­ring ser­vices, as well as its orga­ni­sa­tio­nal struc­tu­re, modal shift effects, trans­port per­for­mance, infra­struc­tures, ser­vice points and the needs of the ship­ping indus­try. The Fede­ral Council’s report should also address the effects and pro­s­pects of the stra­te­gic rea­lignment of SBB Cargo and iden­ti­fy poli­ti­cal sce­na­ri­os for fur­ther deve­lo­p­ment, any need for legis­la­ti­ve action and the need for invest­ment in new rol­ling stock, auto­ma­ti­on and digitalisation.

Details on pos­tu­la­te 21.3597 «Future of freight traf­fic» can be read here.

Committed to stronger rail

We at the VAP sup­port both of the above pos­tu­la­tes and, for envi­ron­men­tal and ener­gy poli­cy reasons, are com­mit­ted to a balan­ced modal split and a high diver­si­ty of ser­vices. Within the frame­work of the Wagon­load Trans­port Inte­rest Group (IG WLV), we are curr­ent­ly working on a fit­ness pro­gram­me for rail freight trans­port. This includes more inten­si­ve coope­ra­ti­on bet­ween freight rail­ways and SBB Cargo in the inte­rests of cus­to­mers. Tog­e­ther with the FOT, we are also in the pro­cess of dri­ving for­ward and rapidly imple­men­ting the digi­ta­li­sa­ti­on and auto­ma­ti­on of rail freight. Par­ti­cu­lar atten­ti­on is being paid to the Digi­tal Auto­ma­tic Cou­pling DAK (cf. Pro­gress for Auto­ma­ti­on in Rail Freight Traf­fic). Also in coope­ra­ti­on with the FOT, we are curr­ent­ly dra­wing up a con­cept for the con­tri­bu­ti­on of rail freight trans­port to the reduc­tion of CO2 emis­si­ons. You can also find more infor­ma­ti­on on this in our spe­cia­list blog.