The Swiss customs is introducing a new system, Transito, in order to improve the efficiency at the Swiss borders for heavy goods vehicles (HGV) transit traffic. The new system allows transiting HGVs to use express lanes, in order to expedite customs clearance and declaration of the Swiss heavy vehicles fee without the need for the driver to leave the driver's cabin.

It used to take the transiting HGVs around 15 minutes to complete the formalities using the old procedures at the cross-border crossing, whereas they will be able to complete these in 1-2 minutes with the new express handling procedures.

Rapp Trans prepared the initial feasibility study and analysed the various options. This was followed by the preparation of the detailed plans for the management of the traffic flow of HGVs importing and exporting at a major cross-border crossing.

These HGV traffic management plans are now in use following the implementation of the new system.

Since the 1st January 2008, the responsibility for the traffic management of the Swiss national roads has been transferred to the federal government, to enable the management of congestion at bottlenecks, incidents and accidents at a national level.

Traffic management plans are essential elements in operations of the national roads, based on operational guidelines and instructions for location and traffic dependent scenarios.

Rapp Trans developed traffic management plans for the north-south axis of Switzerland on behalf of the Federal Office for Roads (FEDRO). Particular attention was given to the management of the heavy goods vehicles at border crossings, the Gotthard and San Bernardino routes.

These overall and detailed plans form a basis for the implementation of the national traffic management centre operated by FEDRO.

Tricubes Berhad wished to extend the use of the existing traffic camera system in the Kuala Lumpur region. The objective was to maximise the value of the services, whilst considering cost and lead-time aspects in a sensitive environment.

Rapp Trans studied in partnership the various options and proposed five options with the highest potential for further evaluation.

The Swiss policy of transferring goods transport to rail with a push-and-pull strategy has been a success. However, the target of reducing the transalpine truck traffic from the current figure of 1.2 million vehicles per annum to 650,000 cannot be reached without additional economic measures.

The idea of an alpine crossing exchange (ACE) has been suggested by political parties and interest groups. Rapp Trans undertook in partnership two ACE research studies,in the first, two different models were developed and evaluated: a Cap-and-Trade scheme based on a fixed number of tradable passage rights; and a dynamic slot pricing scheme based on the available capacity for HGV traffic through the Alpine tunnels. The second study investigated the feasibility of the Cap-and-Trade scheme. It showed that an auctioning scheme, where the total number of crossings per year is fixed, is technically feasible and suitable for practical use.

Based on the results of this study, the Swiss Government has submitted a proposal for the implementation of the ACE to the Parliament.