In the first half of 2024 through the Swiss Alps A total of 19.62 million tons were transported of goods, with an increase of +1.9% over the first six months of last year year that was generated both by the growth of +1.3% in the rail traffic totalling 14.20 million tonnes and by the +3.5% increase in road traffic which amounted to 5.43 million tonnes. In the first half of this year - announced today the Swiss Federal Office for Transport - rail share was 72.3%, 0.5 points percentages less than in the first six months of last year.

The FOT explained that in the first half of 2024 the activity of transporting goods through the Alps is was characterized by the consequences of the accident in the tunnel Gotthard base and the construction sites underway on important access routes to Alptransit which, together with the difficult economic situation in Europe, have led to a slight decrease in the rail share, while the transalpine road traffic with the transit of 480 thousand trucks, with a growth of +3.5% compared to the first six months of 2023.

If in the first half of 2024 the consequences of the accident occurred in August 2023 in the Gotthard Base Tunnel were still clearly perceptible to the railway, with volumes of goods transited on the Gotthard axis results decreased by -7.2%, traffic on the Lötschberg-Simplon axis, on the other hand, recorded growth of +23.0%. As for the increase in the road transport, mainly affected the Gotthard (354 thousand trucks, +5.2 %) and the Great St. Bernard (16 thousand trucks, +18.7%), while it decreased at San Bernardino (64 thousand trucks, -3.4%) and Simplon (46 thousand trucks, -2.9%).

With regard to the outlook for the coming months, the FOT expects that major construction work that began this summer and scheduled on the access routes to Alptransit in Italy and in Germany will cause a significant drop in rail traffic.