IF articles

Abstract - Freight exchange between North-Western Italy and the Western part of Central-Northern Europe uses three transport modes: the road transport formed by the routes that cross the Alps through the tunnels of Frejus, of Mont Blanc, of Gran San Bernard, of Gotthard and of San Bernardino; the rail line of Frejus; the rail transport through the Swiss Alps, formed by the lines of Simplon and of Gotthard. The latter transport mode has undergone in the last decades a far reaching innovation process, which has succeeded in the objective to reverse the decreasing trend of the proportion of freight carried by rail. By study- ing the evolution dynamics of the freight traffic split between the three transport modes, this paper identifies the reasons for this success, which furnishes some useful sug- gestions about the criteria that should be followed in the process of innovation of freight rail transport.