Last Saturday truck-ban on the Brenner corridor concludes today, easing Austria–Italy freight bottleneck

For the past nine weekends, heavy-goods vehicles over 7.5 tonnes have been barred from using the A13 Brenner motorway in Tyrol (north-bound) and the Italian A22 stretch between Vipiteno and the state border every Saturday from 07:00–15:00. The extraordinary measure—agreed by Austria’s ASFINAG, Italy’s motorway operator Autostrade del Brennero and the Tyrolean regional government—was introduced on 10 January 2026 to prevent dangerous congestion while renovation works on Tyrol’s 1.8 km Lueg Bridge narrowed traffic to a single lane in each direction. Today, Saturday 14 March 2026, marks the final day of the coordinated ban. From next week trucks will again be able to use the Brenner route on Saturdays, although night-time and public-holiday restrictions that pre-date the bridge works remain in force. Civil engineers report that the most disruptive phase of the Lueg Bridge rebuild is complete and the structure can now handle controlled HGV flows without jeopardising worksite safety. The Brenner axis is the busiest north-south road freight corridor in the Alps, carrying an average of 7,000 trucks a day. Logistics operators have spent the winter diverting loads via the Tauern or Gotthard corridors or re-timing departures to avoid the Saturday curfew, adding cost and complexity to just-in-time supply chains serving southern Germany, Austria and northern Italy. Ending the weekend ban is therefore expected to cut transit times by up to ten hours and reduce detour mileage for export-orientated SMEs.



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Tyrol’s regional authorities caution that ad-hoc restrictions could return if summer traffic threatens to overwhelm the work-in-progress bridge. The new Lueg superstructure is scheduled to open fully in late-2027, after which both countries plan to review the long-standing Tyrolean sectoral HGV bans that have repeatedly strained relations with EU neighbours. Freight forwarders are urged to monitor official bulletins and factor residual lane closures into route planning. For business travellers, the lifting of the Saturday embargo should also ease weekend airport-to-resort transfers between Innsbruck, South Tyrol and the Dolomites—a key consideration as the Easter ski season begins.