Austria, Tyrol is restricting exits on some autobahns between Germany and Italy to traffic tying to avoid traffic jams and tolls. The ban applies to the exits between Hall and Zirl on the Inntal motorway (A12) as well as Patsch and Gries am Brenner on the Brenner motorway (A13). The old Brenner road is not affected by the bans. It may be expanded to include around Kufstein and Reutte. This started This week and applies Saturday and Sunday 07:00-19:00 to motorcycles, cars and trucks, and will continue through September. Precautions have also been taken to ensure that navigation devices no longer display the bypasses. Only residents and tourists who have a destination in the area are allowed through. Seems there is a fight and talks through the EU Commission between Germany, Bavaria and Austria, Tyrol over this as Germany considers this unfair, and if approved should also apply in Bavaria! The situation continues to develop...
https://www.merkur.de/welt/strassensperren-in-tirol-fahrverbot-in-oesterreich-soll-ausgeweitet-werden-zr-12565141.html
https://www.zeit.de/mobilitaet/2019-06/oesterreich-tirol-landstrassen-sperrung-reiseverkehr
Posted by
1900 posts
The title of this blog thread is misleading.
There is no "driving ban" in Tyrol, just certain roads are closed at certain days at certain times for through traffic. Local traffic is not affected, you can go to any town in Tyrol as you want.
The two major highways (Autobahn) in Tyrol, A12 and A13, are notorious for traffic jams, especially on holiday weekends when Germans travel to/from Italy.
With the arising of navigation systems lots of people dared now trying to circumvent traffic jams on the highways by changing to local country roads. As the navigation systems get their data from the same source, all systems showed the same detours, hence creating traffic jams on local roads, too. People living there got really annoyed. So measures had to be taken to keep pure through traffic on the highways.
The main culprit for this situation are the 40 tons semitrucks going from Germany to Italy and back, about 2.5 million per year just crossing Austria. Although this is not the shortest route, they go this way because it is the cheapest route. Switzerland was so clever to rise the price bar for transit trucks to such an high level, that it had become cheaper to go across Austria, even on a longer route.
Posted by
OP
Oberpfalz, Germany
1289 posts
No intent to mislead with the title and I can sympathise with the local people. I've been in some ski areas during high season where the secondary streets have the heavy traffic and Stau and wonder how the local people even get out of their driveways or side streets. We used to have a lot of the old East truck traffic through our area on secondary streets for years until the German Autobahn A6 was complete to the Czech Republic. Honestly I set my Navi to avoid Stau and not even notify me. It takes me places I've never been before. Never thought that the "Real Time" traffic notification and reroute actually caused more Stau. Curious what will come out of the EU Commission.
Posted by
Augsburg, Bavaria
2332 posts
Although this is not the shortest route, they go this way because it is the cheapest route.
Well, first of all, for trucks originating in or transiting trough Germany with a destination in central or eastern Italy there is not much choice; they have to take the Brenner transit, which is in fact the shortest route for them. Trucks transiting through Switzerland are headed to destinations in (north-) western Italy. secondly, AFAIK it's not correct that transit through Tyrol is cheaper. In Switzerland a 40 ton truck pays approx. 0.03 CHF per ton per km. So a 40 ton truck covering the distance between Innsbruck and Brenner (approx 40km) would be charged with CHF 48 = €44. OTOH the night transit on the Brenner route for the same truck is approx €90.
Anyway, with the opening of the Brenner base tunnel in 2029, the situation will improve considerably. And once the sleepy German Federal Railway has improved its part of the Inn Valley route, this will be a further step forward, provided the tariffs are competitive. The last rail transit from Rosenheim to South Tyrol failed exactly because of this.
Posted by
Firenze, Italy
1528 posts
In my experience the Brenner road has heavy truck traffic, but the horrendous jams on Saturdays and Sundays in August are due to tourist traffic, not to to truck traffic (that in Italy is severely restricted during weekends). Said in other words, trucks are bad, but to really bring everything to a standstill you need German tourists going to/from Garda lake.