Liguria joins alliance for completion of NRLA

Liguria joins alliance for the completion of the NRLA Keystone-SDA

The alliance calling for the completion of the Gotthard-Alpine transversal NRLA has broadened. The Liguria region has signed a corresponding letter to the Swiss and European authorities. Piedmont had already joined in earlier.

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Ticino, Lombardy, Piedmont and now also Liguria want to jointly promote the Genoa-Rotterdam freight corridor. On Monday, the president of the Ligurian Legislative Assembly, Stefano Balleari, met the president of the Ticino cantonal parliament, Michele Guerra, to sign a joint letter. The signing took place on the fringes of a meeting of Genoese hauliers in Genoa.

The letter emphatically calls for the completion of the New Rail Link through the Alps (NRLA). Some 90% of goods travelling from Italy to Switzerland are transported via the Gotthard axis with a trade volume of over €1 billion (CHF950 million) per week.

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Goods trains run too slowly in Italy

Nevertheless, the Italian section is still “insufficiently developed”, the Italian news agency Ansa quotes Balleari. Goods trains travel in Italy at an average speed of just 64km/h, which has a negative impact on efficiency and competitiveness.

Ticino and Lombardy agreed on the letter around three weeks ago. The letter, accompanied by three resolutions, will be sent by Ticino to the federal government and by Piedmont, Lombardy and Liguria to the European authorities.

The opening of the Ceneri Tunnel marks the completion of the NRLA. However, work is still ongoing on some access routes in the north and south of Switzerland. This applies in particular to the four-metre corridor for goods trains on the Lötschberg-Simplon axis as far as Novara. Italy had committed to upgrading this route by 2028.

Work in the north is likely to take even longer: Germany is upgrading various sections of the Rhine Valley railway between Karlsruhe and Basel to four tracks. The work should be completed by 2040.

Translated from German by DeepL/ts

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