The Swiss Federal Council announced today its intention to to increase rail freight traffic through the Alps with resources from an increase in the heavy vehicle charge Performance-Commensurate (HVC). The tax applied road transport, which has remained unchanged since 2012, will be increased +5% effective January 1, 2025. In addition, the Council has announced that it is working on a project for the further development of the HVC, which will regulate, among other things, integration of the propelled vehicle tax into the system Electric.

The new Traffic Transfer Report, adopted today by the Federal Council, also plans to create the basis for rail transport on routes of less than 600 kilometres can be receive more financial support. To this end, it is necessary to Incentives for rail transport are expected to be reduced on a long distances. It is expected that the beneficiaries will have to be are, in particular, domestic traffic to and from Ticino and import and export traffic. There are also increased incentives for transport offers to and from the Southern Germany and eastern France.

The new report also predicts that the rolling highway will remain in operation until 2028, as desired by Parliament ( of 5 June 2023). In addition, the Confederation is waiving the Increase in the price of electricity for traction planned for the beginning of 2024. The The price will therefore remain at 12 Swiss franc cents per kilowatt hour, relieving freight traffic of around 10 million francs per year.

On the occasion of the presentation of the new measures for the rail freight transport sector, the Swiss government has highlighted that the completion of the new rail through the Alps (Alptransit) and the other instruments and measures adopted so far have a positive impact on the transfer of freight transport across the Alps: in the first half of 2023, the railway market share of 72.7% and at the same time truck transits have fallen well below one million, despite strong global traffic growth. The Council Swiss recalled that, however, the objective enshrined in law to reduce truck transits to 650,000 per year remains unfulfilled.