INNOVATIVE GOVERNMENTAL APPROACHES TO SUPPORT AND PROMOTE INTERMODAL TRANSPORT ON TRANSALPINE CORRIDORS THROUGHSWITZERLAND

摘要

The European transport policy as well as national transport policies aim at increasing themarket share of more environmentally friendly transport modes (rail, inland waterway, andshort sea shipping integrated into intermodal transport alternatives). Road transport hasstill the biggest mode share and despite the fact that forecasts show that short seashipping will grow slightly faster than road transport in the mid- and long-term view, it still isa dominant mode of transport for intra-European freight transport.One of the main reasons for this development is intermodal logistics inability to adequatelymeet the customer requirements in the new logistic environment that emerged during the1990s. Road transport is often considered to be more flexible, cost effective, transparent,efficient and providing higher service quality than intermodal transport alternatives.Organisational, technical, financial, economical, infrastructural and logistical barriershinder today a wide breakthrough of intermodal logistics.The paper gives a general overview on policies and measures to support and promoteintermodal transport in Europe and explains in more detail the Swiss approach to supportand promote intermodal transport on the transalpine freight corridor through Switzerland.Besides the concrete measures also the experiences and effects of the Swiss approachare shown.The paper is based mainly on the work of the PIARC Technical Committee “2.4 FreightTransport and Intermodality” which is presented in the report “Measures promotingalternatives to the road and intermodal terminals” and intermodal concepts, research andevaluation projects carried out in Switzerland. Also interim results of the running EuropeanPROMIT project (Promoting Innovative Intermodal Freight Transport) have been taken intoaccount. The paper focuses on governmental measures addressing non-accompaniedintermodal transport.