iMONITRAF! Political Roundtable 2016 in Lucerne
Representatives ofthe Alpine regions along the most affected transit corridors - Brenner, Gotthard, Mont Blanc and Fréjus - have agreed on key elements for harmonizing and improving existing pricing approaches to road freight transport. Also, they agreed to continue their cooperation in the framework of iMONITRAF! for the next two years, focusing on the implementation of the regional Toll Plus proposal.
Regional and national measures to promote a modal shift from road to rail have had limited success: In Switzerland, the intermediate modal shift target will be reached five years too late - the volume of 1 million lorries/year will be exceeded by 2015. HGV/year by 2015 and will only be reached in the last year. Other transit corridors have to cope with even higher traffic volumes, which are still increasing. The challenge of limiting transalpine freight traffic and its negative impact on the fragile environment therefore remains great. The Alpine regions have recognised the need for a common and harmonised approach to this challenge and are now taking a step forward in the implementation of their common transport strategy.
Over the last three years, the iMONITRAF! group has developed a regional proposal for an ambitious Toll Plus system, based on the exchange of best practices and the results of the joint monitoring system. The Toll Plus proposal aims to improve the internalisation of disproportionate external costs in the Alpine regions and to harmonise existing pricing approaches. With their proposal, the regions also claim a share of the revenues of such a Toll Plus system to finance accompanying environmental and intermodal projects as well as necessary modal shift infrastructures in the regions.
At their meeting, the political representatives of the most affected transit regions once again demonstrated their solidarity and willingness to implement a harmonised approach. They agreed to continue working together for another two years, with a clear focus on finding broader support for the Toll Plus proposal, especially at the European and national levels, which will be necessary for its implementation. At European level, the revision of the relevant framework - the Eurovignette Directive - has been launched in summer 2016 and the iMONITRAF! network will actively lobby for the inclusion of the Toll Plus proposal in this revision process.