Cross-border transport planning

The EU-Switzerland land transport agreement covers freight and passenger transport by road and rail. This entered into force on July 1, 2002 and aims to fully liberalize access to the transport markets of the contracting parties. With the entry into force of the agreement, a joint Switzerland-EU land transport committee was set up. The joint platform is used for the mutual exchange of information and the assessment of traffic flows.

In road transport, the EU has concluded two agreements that take precedence over bilateral agreements. These are:

• the Agreement on the European Economic Area (EEA Agreement) with regard to traffic with Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein and
• the Agreement between the EU and Switzerland on land transport.

According to Article 45 of the Agreement, it was decided to establish the Alpine Traffic Observatory, which has been operating since 2007. The Traffic Observatory was set up by the EU together with Switzerland to collect data, highlight developments and produce reports on transalpine traffic flows by road, rail and combined transport.

The data of the traffic development of the transalpine routes of the Alpine Transport Observatory are submitted annually to the Swiss-EU Joint Land Transport Committee. The Swiss-EU Joint Land Transport Committee keeps the implementation of the Land Transport Agreement up to date. In this context, traffic development represents an important component of the exchange of information.

For more information, see ec.europa.eu/transport/modes/road/non-eu-countries_en.htm

In the light of the tragic accident in the Gotthard tunnel at the end of October 2001, as well as other tragic accidents in other tunnels, the transport ministers of Germany, Italy, France, Switzerland and Austria, in the presence of the European Commission and on Switzerland's initiative, signed a joint declaration on November 30, 2001, the so-called "Zurich Declaration" . This declaration was intended to achieve an improvement in modal shift as well as road safety.

As very significant achievements of these presidencies can be listed the adoption of the EU tunnel safety directive road and the agreement on a joint study commission in connection with an "Alpine transit exchange". For more information, see Acrossthealps

The International Transport Forum ITF International Transport Forum is a globally active transport policy communication platform and at the same time central so-called think tank of the traffic and transport sector, a special organization of the OECD. Its political weight results primarily from the support it receives from various stakeholders. As a neutral mediating institution, it aims to promote dialog between government representatives and stakeholders from business, research and society. Its guiding values are transparency and public accessibility.

The Transport Expert Group of the Region Sarganserland-Werdenberg unites the two public transport commissions of the Sarganserland and Werdenberg regions that have been in place for years. The committee acts as a link between the canton and the municipalities. On a regional level, requests, service changes, consultations, conceptual and strategic work or customer complaints are coordinated and processed. In addition to public transport, the transport specialist group also deals with the areas of slow-moving traffic and motorized private transport.

The local public transport system is coordinated by Verkehrsverbund Vorarlberg GmbH.

In Vorarlberg's transport policy, the course was set more than 20 years ago to use public transport as an instrument of future-oriented transport planning. Since then, the promotion of local public transport has no longer been just a verbal transport policy demand and compulsory exercise. It has been firmly anchored in the principles and goals of Vorarlberg's transport concept and is being put into practice very successfully, now even attracting international attention.