English - Alps Know-How - Cipra

Chapter A – The Alpine Transport System
A3.3 Individual motorised transport
Passenger transport which is carried out by cars and motorcycles
is called individual motorised transport.
Generally there are sufficient data on the transportation by
car obtained from yearly automatic measurements of the
number of vehicles on the roads to outline the main traffic
flows. In some countries there are also two different types
of automatic measurements, one counting only the volume
of traffic and the other counting and classifying different
types of vehicles, like passenger car, heavy goods vehicle,
trailer truck, etc. There is, however, no coherent information
about the transport performance (passenger-km) for the area
covered by the Alpine Convention.
To receive more detailed information on the origin and destination
of passenger transport, traffic censuses at regional or
local level and surveys of drivers are carried out. However in
most cases these studies are carried out at project level.
Indicator B7-3: Network load due to cars and trucks
at automatic traffic meters in the Alpine region
This indicator monitors the traffic on the main road network,
using the results from automatic recording devices.
Data were collected for the whole network for the years
1985, 1990, 1995, 2000 and 2005 (Italian data are missing).
Although a large data set is available, there are a
some inconsistencies:
• the recording system is not the same in all countries,
• the data until 2005 are not available in all countries,
• the structures of the different networks are not comparable.
Fig. A3‐4: Car traffic in the Alps (Source: Austria http://www.asfinag.at/index.php?idtopic=20,
Automatische Dauerzählstellen (AVZ); Switzerland:
www.verkehrsdaten.ch; France: Sétra (service d’Études techniques des
routes et autoroutes), Cete de l’Est: Données de l’année 2003; Slovenia:
Direkcija Republike Slovenije Za Ceste, Podatki za leta: 2005; Germany:
Zentrale Datenverarbeitung im Straßenbau, Dauerzählstellen, Jahresauswertung
2003).
The increase in car traffic continues
The last 10 years have seen a continued increase in car traffic.
In some places, a rate of increase of up to around 45%
has been observed – a rate which varies depending on road
function and capacity. Fig. A3‐5 shows the increase in car traffic
on selected road segments in the Alps between 1995 and
2005.
Due to some of these inconsistencies it has not been possible
to carry out an Alpine-wide analysis of passenger
traffic. Data for some selected road sections in the Alpine
area are given in Fig. A3‐4.
Traffic loads on selected Alpine motorways
Fig. A3‐4 shows the average numbers of vehicles per day at
several measure points on Alpine motorways. On average,
the motorways in the Alps have to cope with 10,000 – 30,000
cars per day. The most frequented traffic routes with more
than 50,000 cars per day can be found on the edges of the
Alpine Convention area near the larger cities (A8 at Rosenheim
in Germany, A2 at Luzern in Switzerland). The motorway
with the highest traffic loads in Austria is the A12 in the
Inn valley with more than 40,000 vehicles per day. In France
the A41 at Chambery shows the highest number of vehicles,
in Slovenia the A1 at Maribor.
Additionally, routes with a variety of functions (access to tourist
destinations, transit routes, access to towns and cities)
are affected especially by heavy traffic.
Fig. A3‐5: Development of car traffic 1995 – 2005 (Source: Data from
automatic recording devices in different AC signatory states).
It is assumed that the traffic volumes will continue to grow in
the next few years, although not quite as fast as in the last
few years. From 2000 until 2030 traffic volumes will grow on
road and rail combined at the rate of 15 to 29% (depending
on the scenario), but more slowly than in the past 30
years. The car will still be the favoured means of transport,
regardless of the disproportionately high increase in public
transport (ARE 2006).
Transport across the Alps is concentrated in the east
When looking at traffic volumes, it is noticeable that passenger
transport across the Alps is concentrated in the eastern
part of the Alps (see Fig. A3‐6). In the western part, the
main traffic volumes are observed along the coast in France,
and in Switzerland through the Gotthard tunnel as the main
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