{"id":85592,"date":"2024-07-12T18:25:59","date_gmt":"2024-07-12T08:25:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.railfreight.com\/?p=54359"},"modified":"2024-07-12T18:25:59","modified_gmt":"2024-07-12T08:25:59","slug":"despite-being-underutilised-the-brenner-rolling-highway-is-underperforming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=85592","title":{"rendered":"Despite being underutilised, the Brenner Rolling Highway is underperforming"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Rolling Highway (RoLa) connecting Trento, in Italy, and W\u00f6rgl, in Austria, has seen 5 per cent fewer freight trains between 2022 and 2023. Last year, only 104,000 trucks were transferred on the railways for this service, while the total available capacity exceeds 300,000. In other words, there currently is a reverse modal shift from the rail to the road occurring along the Brenner axis.<\/strong>
\n<\/span>This decrease in freight trains along the RoLa is caused by the difference in costs between using the road and the rail, as Austrian newspaper Tiroler Tageszeitung claimed. Crossing the Brenner via road is so cheap that some trucks decide to pass through there even if it means extending the journey by dozens of kilometres. One solution would be to increase road tolls, which might encourage companies to choose a freight train over a truck.<\/p>\n

Moreover, truck drivers\u2019 salaries are another factor incentivising the shift to the road. According to the Austrian newspaper, if these salaries were to be adapted to more standard quotas, road transport across the Brenner axis would cost 20 per cent more. Another issue causing a rail freight decline is the lack of intermodal terminals, especially in Trento and the German region of Bavaria, which is just a few kilometres north of W\u00f6rgl.<\/p>\n