Fréjus: end of the road for the “Alpine motorway on rails”

The “Autostrada ferroviaria alpina” (Afa) is no longer in operation. Since 2003, the system had enabled trucks to be transported on special railway wagons between Orbassano near Turin/I and Aiton near Chambéry/F. The reason for its closure: cuts in Afa funding by the governments in Rome and Paris. This means that dangerous goods will once again be transported across the Alps by road. “The Afa system was certainly not a prime example of efficiency and did not solve the problem of transit traffic, as it did not meet the requirements of modern logistics with only four trains a day between Turin and Lyon and waiting times at the stations”, says Francesco Pastorelli, managing director of CIPRA Italy, “but it had to and could be modernised and improved. Instead, it was abandoned. As a result, heavy goods traffic on the motorway through the already congested Susa and Maurienne valleys continues to increase”. The planned opening of a second motorway tunnel through Fréjus could further increase traffic volumes.

In its latest policy paper on mobility in the Alps (due to be published in May 2025), CIPRA addresses the issue of long-distance freight and passenger transport. It calls for a genuine shift of traffic from road to rail through accompanying measures, such as sanctions on road use, or no additional roads for intra-Alpine traffic. On the other hand, the capacity of the existing combined road and rail transport infrastructure should be improved, for example by means of car trains along the Alpine transit axes.

Sources and further information:

www.afalpina.com (it, fr, en) www.rainews.it/tgr/piemonte/articoli/2025/04/si-ferma-lautostrada-ferroviaria-alpina-il-trasporto-merci-torna-su-gomma-6285c447-8ae9-4ab7-842b-ebe436ea963a.html (it),  https://torino.corriere.it/notizie/economia/25_aprile_14/torino-lione-stop-al-servizio-dell-autostrada-ferroviaria-alpina-a-rischio-100-posti-di-lavoro-c0dfaf91-7141-445b-9f36-336e1f64exlk.shtml (it)