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Brenner: Cheap route causes truck problem

For years, the Tyrolean government has been denouncing that the Brenner Pass is too cheap for freight traffic. Now a study has confirmed that many trucks themselves take detours in order to use the cheap Brenner Pass. This causes congestion and traffic jams on the motorway.

The Austrian province of Tyrol commissioned a study on the use of 8 Alpine crossings in Switzerland and Austria, including the Brenner, Tauern and Gotthard links. The result is not at all surprising: in 2019, one third of drivers took a longer route of 60 kilometres to benefit from the favourable Brenner tariff. After all, that's over 880,000 lorries a year. For one fifth, it was even an additional 120 kilometres. Because the shortest route is not always the cheapest. For only 40 per cent of the drivers was the journey via the Brenner actually the shortest route. By comparison, the Swiss Gotthard Pass is used optimally: For 97 percent of the trucks, this crossing is actually the shortest route.

Transport Provincial Councillor Felipe (Greens) of Tyrol therefore wants to bring traffic over the Brenner under better control, because along this route it is also often possible to fill up with much cheaper fuel than on other routes. And finally, there is the much cheaper toll at the Brenner.

It is not for nothing that the Brenner Pass attracts the most transit traffic across the Alps, even more than all Swiss passes combined. To take the pressure off this transit route, tolls and diesel would have to become more expensive. A first step towards relieving the pressure on the Alpine passes is the envisaged Alpine Transit Exchange, which would better regulate traffic across the Alps. Another solution would be the introduction of an environmental zone on the route, as already exists on the Inntal motorway in Tyrol.

But the states concerned have not yet been able to reach an agreement, and so the CO2 emissions of trucks remain very high. At the Brenner alone, it amounts to about 26 tonnes a day. Reason enough to ban dirty vehicles and thus better protect local residents.