SWISS company RAlpin has announced it will withdraw its Freiburg im Breisgau - Novara rolling road piggyback (RoLa) service for lorries and drivers in December, three years earlier than originally planned. This follows the 2023 decision by the Swiss Parliament to phase out financial support for the service over five years.
Operating since 2001, the service offers drivers and logistics firms a means of bypassing night-time and weekend driving bans in Germany and Switzerland. The service uses specially designed low-floor wagons to transport entire lorries, with accompanying coaches for drivers.
Despite a strong utilisation rate of 80%, and ongoing subsidies from the Swiss federal government, RAlpin says that the service has become economically unsustainable. In 2024, around 10% of scheduled trains were cancelled, largely due to infrastructure work on the Freiburg - Basle corridor and other unforeseen disruption.
These cancellations contributed to a net loss of SFr 2.2m ($US 2.7m) in 2024, even after subsidies. The downward trend has continued into 2025, with only 794 trains operated during the first quarter of this year due to infrastructure work, 20% down on the 1018 trains operated in the same period in 2024.
RAlpin’s shareholders, Bern-Lötschberg-Simplon Railway (BLS), Hupac, and Swiss Federal Railways (SBB), have committed to funding operations until the end of this year to ensure an orderly shutdown. The Swiss federal government will also increase compensation per truck moved until the final service runs in December.
The decision reflects broader changes in freight transport. While RAlpin’s shareholders believe that some traffic may shift to unaccompanied trailers transferred to rail using modern crane-handling technology, industry stakeholders acknowledge that some traffic may be lost entirely, with lorries likely to revert to road transit through Switzerland.
Other RoLa services across the Alps, such as those between Austria and Italy, continue to operate, though their future may also depend on long-term political and financial support.
