📋 Tender Overview
Last year, 960,000 trucks on the street drove through the Swiss Alps, 44,000 more than in the previous year. The railroad share declined from 72 to 70.3 percent due to numerous construction sites. This emerges from the latest report on the Alpine -crossing freight transport, which the Federal Office of Transport (BAV) published on March 20, 2025. In 2024 there were extraordinarily large number of restrictions on the north-south rail corridor. In summer, the three -week total closure of the Rhine Valley Railway between Karlsruhe and Basel. Powerful alternative routes without massive detours were not available. In Italy, the Luino route and the Milano domodosola route were also closed last year. This shows that at the international level, construction site planning does not yet work well for larger closures. The full closures without adequate diversion options brought market share losses of the rail.
Meanwhile, the road transport in Alpine -crossing freight transport by Switzerland in 2024 was largely normal. The only major exception was the blocking of several weeks and the then limited operation on the A13 in the Misox as a result of a storm. This led to a shift of truck trips from San Bernardino to the Gotthard. The target value of a maximum of 650,000 alpine truck trips was still exceeded by around 310,000 trips. Further measures in favor of relocating the federal government continues its commitment to relocating the Alpine -crossing freight traffic on the rail. Together with Belgium, Switzerland took over the chair of the newly created freight corridor North Sea Rhein-Mittelmeer in early 2025. Among other things, Switzerland wants to ensure that capacity management and construction site planning coordinates even more internationally and that sufficient capacities are made available on the detour routes.
In February 2025, Federal Councilor Albert Rosti and the French Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot also signed a declaration of intent to expand rail freight transport on the left side of the Rhine - an important inlet route to the Neat. In autumn 2025, the Federal Council will provide extensive information about the status of relocation and further measures with the next relocation report.
