The Mont Blanc road tunnel, a major passage for freight flows between France and Italy, will be closed from 1 September to 12 December 2025 for more renovation work. However, there is little or no prospect of modal shift to rail, as 90% of the trucks are expected to be re-routed to the Fréjus alpine road tunnel which connects Modane in France, and Bardonecchia in Italy.
The Mont Blanc tunnel, which handles around 1,700 HGVs daily, was closed for the same duration last autumn when first-phase renovation work began, the Fréjus Tunnel taking the strain of additional HGV traffic. Alexandre Gallo, President and CEO of DB Cargo France bemoaned a lack of consultation and coordination between French government departments to address this type of situation (the closures).
“In a normal world, the closure of the Mont Blanc tunnel would have been discussed well in advance with the railway companies and SNCF Réseau to give transport operators the option of avoiding congestion at the Fréjus Tunnel”, he told RailFreight.com. But this has not been the case and once again the government has turned to “a highly-subsidised and economically unprofitable system to accommodate HGV traffic,” he said.
Low hopes until the new Turin-Lyon opens
Earlier this summer, decade-long work was completed on a second tube through the Fréjus Tunnel. Running parallel to the first, the new tube separates traffic in each direction. “The real concern is that with road transport there are no taxes, beyond motorway tolls, for using the congested Alpine valleys. We should still be asking ourselves why road hauliers, transporting goods from Belgium to Italy, pass through France? The answer is because it’s tax-free!”
He continued: “Rail freight on the French-Italian corridor via the Alps, will only really take off when we have the Lyon-Turin tunnel in service, with the limited gradients and an extended gauge to P400, ” he observed. However, this rail tunnel is only scheduled to open in 2033, at the earliest. Gallo, who is also the President of French rail industry body, AFRA, went on to highlight that rail freight in general, continues to be burdened by extensive renovation and maintenance work on the railway network, which is “limiting the possibility of obtaining new train paths.”