Political roundtabel 2016

2 November, 2016, Lucerne (CH)

Representatives from the Alpine regions along the most affected transit corridors Brenner, Gotthard, Mont Blanc and Fréjus have agreed on core elements for harmonizing and improving existing pricing approaches for road freight transport. Also, they agreed to continue the cooperation in the frame of iMONITRAF! for the next two years – focusing on the implementation of the regional Toll Plus proposal

Regional and national measures to support modal shift from road to rail have led to limited success: In Switzerland, the intermediate modal shift aim will be reached five years to late – the volume of 1 Mio. HGV/year has been exceeded until 2015 and will only be reached in the recent year. Other transit corridors even have to deal with higher traffic volumes which are still on the rise. So the challenge to limit transalpine freight transport and its negative impacts for the sensitive environment remains high. The Alpine regions have recognized that they have to join forces with a common and harmonized approach to deal with this challenge and now move a step forward with the implementation of their common transport strategy (signed in Lyon in May 2012).

Over the last three years, the iMONITRAF! group has developed a reginal proposal for an ambitious Toll Plus System, based on an , the exchange on Best Practices and the results of the common monitoring System (see the annual report 2015) . The Toll Plus proposal has the objective to improve internalization of over-proportional external costs in the Alpine regions and aims at a harmonization of existing pricing approaches. With their proposal, the regions also claim a share of the revenue of such a Toll Plus system, to finance accompanying environmental and intermodal projects as well as necessary modal shift infrastructures in the regions.
More information on the regional Toll Plus proposal can be found in the factsheet accompanying the resolution.

During their meeting, political representatives of the most affected transit regions have again demonstrated their solidarity and their willingness to implement a harmonized approach. They have agreed to continue the cooperation for two more years, with a clear focus on finding broader support for the Toll Plus proposal – especially at European and national level which will be necessary for 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 towards the consideration of the Toll Plus proposal in this revision process.