Railfreight the winner
The Principality of Liechtenstein is one of the European regions afflicted by road congestion, which also impedes goods transport activities. Besides ‘intelligent roads’, rail is also expected to alleviate the situation. Thus ÖBB has upped freight train frequencies.
The outlook contained in the Principality of Liechtenstein’s 2016 status report on its mobility concept extends as far as 2020. It was conceived also as the basis for the country’s new strategic orientation to 2040. Where does it stand today?
Basically, the transport system in Liechtenstein is coming up against its limits – as is the case in many a European region. Both the ever-denser road traffic situation as well as changes in processes in the just-in-time production systems used in the country’s traditionally strong industrial sector influence goods traffic.
Even though the nation’s population growth has come almost to a standstill since 1990, the number of jobs in the country rose to 37,000 in 2014 – almost as high as the principality’s population.
The country’s roads network, consisting of 124 km of overland roads and 290 km of local roads that can also be used by lorries, hasn’t been significantly expanded in the past 50 years.
The Rhine crossings are particularly difficult bottle-necks. The Haag–Bendern and the Sevelen–Vaduz bridges are frequently quite congested. The planners want to ameliorate the situation by setting up a new ‘intelligent’ central lane.
Rail is coming
Road transport activities are subject to the distance-related heavy vehicle fee (HVF), so at least they also contribute CHF 42.9 million to state coffers.
The railways are set to be improved in Liechtenstein too, as is the case elsewhere. At the end of August, however, the electorate voted overwhelmingly against spending CHF 71.3 million on renewing the only railway line in the country, between Feldkirch (Austria) and Buchs (Switzerland). Goods traffic will benefit from the maintenance of the passenger transport status quo, because Austria’s ÖBB railway enterprise, which owns and operates the rail infrastructure, will make the best of the free tracks.
Cargo not often first
Up to 41 freight trains may use the route every day now, instead of the 17 run so far. ÖBB spokesman Christoph Gasser-Mair said that “we’ll be happy to use free capacities to run goods trains to Switzerland, northern Italy and Germany, particularly southwestern Germany, via Buchs and the Brenner.” It’s not often that cargo runs come before those for passengers.
