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• by Keith Nuthall The use of trucks in environmentally
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sensitive areas such as the Alps and Pyrenees should be carefully controlled in future, according to a new European report.
The study by the European Environment Agency, Road Freight Transport and the Environment in Mountainous Areas, points out that the inevitable concentration of road traffic through mountain barriers, will have "a large impact on human health and the ecosystem, especially in Austria, France, Italy and Switzerland".
However, the report shies away from simple blanket truck bans, recommending instead more complex solutions such as better roads and railways, the promotion of rail and inland waterways, road pricing, driver training and better provision of information.
It adds that prices should vary according to pollution and noise emissions, but also that inquiries should be made into whether they could also be tailored according to the environmental sensitivities of particular routes. Night bans for lorry traffic in mountains should be considered, it says—not only to reduce noise nuisance, but also because less NOx is absorbed at night by plants.
• Two fire-ravaged Alpine tunnels will soon be reopened to freight traffic. Bath the Mont Blanc and St Gotthard tunnels were closed following catastrophic fires, but the former should reopen to freight traffic in late January and the St Gotthard is due to open again on 21 December.
However, Don Armour, international services manager at
the Freight Transport Association, warns that a system of alternate traffic flows will be implemented in both the Mont Blanc and Frejus tunnels which link France and Italy, with eight-hour periods of one-way traffic. Alternate traffic flows will also be in place at the St Gotthard and San Bernardino tunnels, but here 30-minute periods will be used.