Brenner motorway

This article deals with the Austrian part of the motorway over the Brenner. For the entire street, see the Brenner motorway .

A13 motorway in Austria
Brenner motorway
map
Basic data
Operator:
Overall length:	35 km
State :	Tyrol
The Europe Bridge on the Brenner Autobahn
Course of the road State of Tyrol Western clasp Innsbruck (0.0)  Innsbruck- Wilten node   Stubai Valley Railway Overpass of the Brenner Strasse B 182 (0.9)  Sonnenburgerhof tunnel ( 170/158 m ) (1,238)  Innsbruck / Bergisel node   (0.0)  Innsbruck- Amras   Paschberg Bridge ( 678 m ) Sill (Bergisel Bridge; 215 m ) (1.5)  Bergisel Tunnel ( 473/484 m ) (1.6)  Brennerbahn tunnels under the Bergisel tunnel (exit 2)  Innsbruck / Bergisel node   (exit 3)  Innsbruck-South 182 (3.1)  Tunneling under the Brenner Railway (3.2)  Sill (Sonnbergbrücke; 180 m ) (3.8)  Tunneling under the Innsbruck railway bypass (exit 4)  Zenzenhof (exit 7)  Patsch / Igls (7.5)  Europabrücke , 182 , Brennerbahn ( 783 m ) (8.3)  Europabrücke rest stop (8.7)  Underground route Schönberg ( 884 m ) Schönberg rest stop (exit 10)  Schönberg / Stubaital 183 (10.7)  Schönberg toll booth Schoenberg-Matrei hillside bridges ( 2,107 m ) Matrei-Wald hillside bridges ( 439 m ) Matrei rest stop Mietzener Bridge ( 349 m ) (exit 19)  Matrei - Steinach 182 Parking lot Wipptaler Hof (with accommodation) Gschnitztal Bridge ( 674 m ) Felperbrücke ( 393 m ) Saxen Bridge ( 210 m ) Zagl Bridge ( 236 m ) Outer Nösslach Bridge ( 340 m ) (exit 27)  Nösslach Inner Nösslach Bridge ( 202 m ) Gries rest stop Schlierbach Bridge ( 186 m ) Obernberg valley crossing ( 458 m ) Luegbrücke ( 1,837 m ) (exit 33)  Brenner North 182 (33)  Rest station Brennersee-West Brennerbahn Truck checkpoint at Brenner-Ost Brenner East (34.5)  Border crossing Austria - Italy Continue on  → Modena  Under construction In planning Section Control Traffic control system

The Brenner motorway A 13 is a motorway in Tyrol and part of the European route 45 . It forms the Austrian part of the Brenner motorway . It was built in the 1960s and was one of the first mountain highways in the world. On April 5, 1971, traffic between Austria and Italy began. The A 13 runs from the Innsbruck junction ( Inntal Autobahn A 12) through the Wipptal to the Brenner Pass , which has been the border between Italy and Austria since the Treaty of Saint-Germain came into force in 1920 . The subsequent Italian section is called the A 22 , Brenner motorway / Autostrada del Brennero, or Autobrennero for short.

General

Start of the autobahn in Innsbruck

The most important and geologically most difficult section of the European motorway from Munich to Modena starts at the Innsbruck junction and leads to the Brenner Pass or Brenner ( 1370  m above sea level ). Today this forms the border between North Tyrol / Austria and South Tyrol / Italy .

Apart from the bend at Schönberg , the autobahn has curve radii greater than 400 m and the gradient is up to 6.1%. Due to the steep slopes and the side valleys that flow into the Wipptal, 28% of its length runs on bridges. The longest of these is the Luegbrücke at 1804 m , a slope bridge between Gries am Brenner and the top of the pass.

The heart of the A 13 is the 815 m long Europabrücke . With a height of 190 meters, it is the fourth highest bridge in Europe. It was built between 1960 and 1963 as the first section of the motorway.

Most of the route from Innsbruck to Brenner, the Brenner Autobahn is equipped with slow lanes (creeping lanes) if the gradient is more than 3%. Comparable routes z. B. in Switzerland only took up this limit value, which is considered to be optimal, later.

history

As early as 1939 there were plans for a Reichsautobahn from Kufstein via Innsbruck to Matrei am Brenner . The construction of a motorway over the top of the pass did not seem technically feasible at the time, so the section from Matrei to Sterzing was intended as a Reichsstraße . As part of the connection from Berlin to Rome, the route was designed for cross-Alpine traffic regardless of local needs. However, construction never began.

After the Second World War, there was initially no need for a motorway in Tyrol. However, since traffic over the Brenner increased sharply in the 1950s, there were preliminary studies for a motorway construction from 1956, which were completed in 1958. The Innsbruck – Schönberg section was seen as a priority in order to connect the tourist areas of Igls , Patsch and the Stubai Valley . For this purpose, three route variants were examined: an east route from Hall in Tirol via Vill and Ellbögen , a west route via Natters and Kreith with a loop into the Stubai Valley and a medium route near the Sill from Amras to Schönberg. Since the latter provided the best connection to Innsbruck, it was realized, but it required the construction of the Europe Bridge over the deeply cut valley of the Sill.

The Europe Bridge under construction (1962)

In 1959 the groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of the Europe Bridge took place. In 1962 the financing for the continuation of Schönberg zum Brenner was in question. The solution was seen in the tolling of the motorway, which initially met resistance from the Tyrolean population and politics. Since there was otherwise the threat of years of delays, the National Council passed a law in 1964 to finance the Brenner motorway. A few weeks later the Brenner Autobahn Aktiengesellschaft was founded, 65% of which belonged to the federal government and 35% to the state of Tyrol. The company, which has meanwhile been incorporated into ASFINAG , has been assigned the further financing and construction.

In November 1963, Federal Chancellor Alfons Gorbach opened the Innsbruck – Schönberg section with the Europe Bridge. In 1968 the autobahn was passable up to the junction Brennersee (today: Brenner Nord), in 1971 the last section up to the state border at the Brenner was completed.

Open to traffic

date	Motorway section	Length (km)
Nov 17, 1963	ASt Innsbruck Süd - ASt Stubaital	07.030
03 Dec 1967	ASt node Innsbruck-Amras - ASt Innsbruck Süd	03.050
03 Dec 1967	ASt Stubaital - ASt Matrei-Steinach	09.150
Dec 22, 1968	ASt Matrei-Steinach - ASt Brennersee	13.965
0April 5th 1971	ASt Brennersee - State border Brenner	01.306
June 26, 1975	Innsbruck-Wilten node - Innsbruck-Bergisel node	01.505

toll

Play media file

Video toll Schönberg

The entire route of the A 13 is a so-called special toll route . In this area, there is no vignette requirement for vehicles up to 3.5 tons , instead of which a route toll has to be paid. A toll of 10.00 euros (as of February 2020) will be charged for a one-way trip over the Brenner Pass . This can be paid either in cash or by credit card at the toll station. Alternatively, the toll can also be paid via the video toll system. Frequent drivers also have the option of purchasing an annual ticket (EUR 108.00 regular or EUR 68.00 with a vignette section (as of February 2020) ). The main toll booth of the A 13 is located south of the Schönberg junction , there are other toll booths at all entrances and exits.

Vehicles over 3.5 tons pay the toll via the GO-Box of the Austrian truck toll system.

Control point Brenner-Ost

Traffic control point Brenner-Ost towards South Tyrol

Due to the positive effects on traffic safety since the first control point on the Inntal A 12 motorway in Kundl, the Tyrolean state parliament decided in 2003 to implement the Tyrolean control point concept and in 2008 concluded a contract with ASFINAG to set up the KOST Brenner-Ost.

The control point was built on the site of the former motorway customs office. It is located a few hundred meters behind the border with Italy, to the right of the motorway towards Innsbruck ⊙ . From a logistical and economic point of view, a bridge had to be built on Austrian territory for company and emergency vehicles before the customs facilities were demolished. Construction of the 11.17 million euro project began in September 2009 and was completed in December 2010.

The tasks of the inspection body mainly include the inspection of trucks and buses with regard to compliance with the maximum permissible weights, social and road regulations, the technical condition of the vehicles and the correct declaration and labeling of dangerous goods transports. In the case of controls of heavy traffic, but also of passenger traffic, there are additional alcohol controls and controls of the safety devices (seat belts, child safety devices).

In addition, functions of the RoLa (Rollende Landstrasse), such as a ticket counter operated by a forwarding company, but also options for height control and pre-weighing, were set up in the building of the control center . Most of the traffic areas at the control point are signposted with no parking or stopping, and you can only park in the short-term parking zone to purchase the RoLa ticket or the GO-Box . Longer parking, such as in the truck parking lot opposite, is not permitted and this is monitored by the permanently available security service. Drivers who violate this parking ban will be reported and risk fines of up to € 220. Since August 2017, the presence of the maximum speed of 30 kilometers per hour in the lane through the area between the rest stop and the control point has been signposted and is controlled by the police.

In 2011 a rest station with a gas station was built next to the control point.

transit

The Brenner motorway is the motorway most severely affected by truck traffic crossing the Alps. Every year around 2 million trucks drive over the Brenner Pass, the transit share is 83%. Since the year of the economic crisis in 2009, the number of truck trips has been increasing again continuously. The best known citizens' movement against the pollution of neighbors and the environment (noise and pollutants) is the Transitforum Austria-Tirol.

literature

• Brenner-Autobahn AG (Ed.): The Brenner-Autobahn. The first full autobahn to cross the Alps , Innsbruck 1972.
• Bernd Kreuzer: The construction of the motorways and expressways in Austria. In: The motorway network in Austria. 30 years of ASFINAG. Vienna 2012, pp. 11–120. ( PDF; 7.6 MB )
• Wolfgang Meixner : "Bridges to the South". 50 years of debates about the Brenner traffic , in: Klaus Brandstätter , Julia Hörmann (Ed.): Tyrol - Austria - Italy. Festschrift for Josef Riedmann for his 65th birthday , Innsbruck 2005, pp. 469–482.
• Wittfrida Mitterer: Built landscape in motion. The Brenner motorway. A building of the century turns 50 . Weger, Brixen 2014, ISBN 978-88-6563-111-9
• Magdalena Pernold: The Brenner motorway as an infrastructure for traffic and transit. For the delimitation of geographical traffic areas in the period of their realization . In: Andrea Bonoldi, Hannes Obermair (eds.): Transport and infrastructure - Trasporti e infrastrutture (=  history and region / Storia e regione 25/2 ). StudienVerlag, 2017, ISSN  1121-0303 , p. 64-81 .

Web links

Commons : Brenner Autobahn A13  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Toll information
• Webcams
• Brenner Autobahn on motorways-exitlists.com (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Martin Aschaber, Günter Guglberger, Karl Sporschill: Bridges in Tirol . Studienverlag, Innsbruck 2010, ISBN 978-3-7065-4957-8 .
2. ↑ ^{a b} route toll tariffs. ASFINAG, accessed on February 15, 2020 . 
3. ↑ Control posts in Tyrol. Retrieved April 12, 2016 . 
4. ↑ [1]
5. ↑ Mühlsteiger: Proud of the magnificent building! - The new service station at the Brenner was officially opened recently. Bezirksblätter Tirol GmbH, accessed on January 20, 2015 : “Almost a year after the groundbreaking ceremony, at the beginning of last week, Brenner Rast GmbH, on behalf of ASFINAG, opened the new Brenner Pass service station on the A13 in the immediate vicinity of the border in the presence of numerous politicians and company representatives. [...] On behalf of ASFINAG, the partners STRABAG, OMV and Rosenberger have poured a total of eleven million euros into the "highest rest stop in Europe at 1,370 meters above sea level." 
6. ↑ Growing transit load. Retrieved March 8, 2014 . 
7. ↑ The Brenner as a detour transit emperor. Retrieved March 8, 2014 .