AG4 Work Plan 2026-2028

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Alpine Region, with its mountainous landscape, shapes both the opportunities and challenges for mobility and transport. Geophysical constraints limit options for constructing and maintaining transport infrastructure. At the same time, demand for transport and mobility remains high. The Alpine Region is a major crossroads and transit area for pan-European transport. At the same time commuters, the regional economy and the tourism sector all depend on good connectivity. An efficient transport system in the Alpine Region relies on combining a variety of transport modes, including road, rail and maritime ports, which act as gateways for logistics chains.

Transport and mobility are key topics in several strategic documents of the EU, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Intermodality and interoperability are included in the European Union’s priorities for 2024-2029 under the heading ‘A new plan for Europe’s sustainable prosperity and competitiveness’. Mobility topics also align with other activities under the strategy intended to achieve rapid climate neutrality and develop high-quality transport infrastructure across the continent. Given its specific challenges, the Alpine Region should be further developed as a model for shifting from road to more sustainable modes of transport. Developing transalpine rail infrastructure in line with the Trans-European Network plays a crucial role in achieving modal shift, especially in freight transport. Besides modal shift, the decarbonisation of all transport modes should be accelerated not only to reduce greenhouse gas emissions of the transport sector, but also to reduce air pollution emissions with local impacts to the fragile Alpine ecosystem. 

Building on ten years of collaboration and continuing the activities of previous Work Plans, the main topics identified by Action Group 4 with macro-regional relevance are:

• Energy transition and decarbonisation of road and rail transport
• Smart clean logistics and policy measures in freight transport to support modal shift (rail and combined and multimodal transport)
• Smart and sustainable passenger transport (local, regional and cross-border mobility)
• Facilitating the development of links between the Alpine regions and the Trans-European Network nodes
• Resilience: Adapting transport infrastructure to climate change and natural hazards, coordinating maintenance works