SBB Cargo

Services

SBB Cargo divides its services into the following categories: door-to-door logistics concepts with wagonloads (Cargo Rail and Cargo Express products), block trains (Cargo Train product) and international intermodal transport (traction services for intermodal shuttle trains of all the main operators such as Hupac, ERS, ICF, IFB and T.R.W.). Standard products as well as individual solutions are offered. The “Rail & Transfer” service within Switzerland is aimed at forwarders and companies who have their own truck dispatching facilities. “Swiss Split” is the connection system for imports and exports in international intermodal freight services in Switzerland.

SBB Cargo provides the daily feeder service and local distribution of intermodal load units – for example containers and interchangeable containers – between the sidings of Swiss businesses and the country's international shuttle terminals. Since September 2011 SBB Cargo offers a rail shuttle between the Basel container terminal and Chavornay for transporting overseas containers. By expanding intermodal transport in Switzerland, SBB Cargo is adding to its existing business in wagonload and transit freight. The concept envisages scheduled trains connecting the main centres in Switzerland. Shuttle trains will go back and forth according to a fixed timetable. The first pilot train has been operating on a fixed timetable twice a day between Dietikon near Zurich and Renens near Lausanne since the beginning of 2012. Since September 2012, SBB Cargo has also been running a scheduled train with refrigerated containers for Migros between Neuendorf (Canton Solothurn) and Gossau (Canton St. Gallen). In June 2013 the north–south shuttle between Dietikon and Cadenazzo started running on workdays, connecting the economic centre of Zurich with the Ticino region, with an extension to Lugano Vedeggio.

In order to manage growing volumes of container traffic for imports and exports, a new terminal for transshipment between ships, rail and lorries is being constructed in northern Basel in close proximity to the Rhine port at Basel-Kleinhüningen. An initial step for transshipment between rail and road is planned for completion by the end of 2016. However, plans for the Limmattal Gateway near Zurich – a new large-scale terminal for trains of up to 750 metres in length – have been postponed. No action is currently being taken with regard to these plans and the planning approval procedure has been shelved.[16] In mediation proceedings instigated by the FOT, however, the logistics industry has agreed that the possibility of building a gateway in Limmattal should definitely be kept open. In order to continue to meet the requirements of the regional economy in the future, the transshipment centre for intermodal transport in Dietikon is to be expanded and upgraded.

SBB Cargo works together with the international climate protection organisation Myclimate to offer its customers a completely climate-neutral transport service. The inevitable CO2 emissions of a shipment by train are neutralised by climate protection measures elsewhere. Unlike other similar schemes, the SBB Cargo concept takes all environmentally harmful emissions and the entire life cycle of the consignment into account when calculating the environmental impact. Since the beginning of 2009, the Swiss railfreight operator has also been providing its customers with individual emission reports. The emissions comparison for all consignments forwarded by SBB Cargo can easily be integrated into operational environmental management systems and presented in environmental audits.