Since September 2020, due to works scheduled to be carried out on the Karavanke Tunnel (on the Slovenia – Austrian border), part of the Koper – Villach traffic has been diverted via Villa Opicina/Tarvisio, generating a 32% increase in traffic on the Italian-Slovenian border crossing, with consequent problems with the management of the Villa Opicina plant and the terminals and plants located in the areas on both sides of the border.

In order to better handle these difficulties and at the same time address the major pre-existing problems of the cross border section , the Italian and Slovenian Infrastructure Managers established a task force, coordinated by the Mediterranean Rail Freight Corridor. The objectives of the Villa Opicina Task Force - which is still operational - are the following: the joint monitoring of the programming and operational management of freight traffic, the sharing of the cross-border traffic management rules (to prevent the congestion of the plant, with consequent traffic interruptions) and the establishment of a dialogue with Railway undertakings  for shared activities aimed at improving the punctuality at the cross border section.

The initial results achieved include the following: more efficient cooperation between the two infrastructure managers and proactive management of relations with the national railway undertakings in order to ensure compliance with the communication flows, the sharing of a common monitoring method (with the activation of a dedicated database in the cloud) and the establishment of an emergency procedure for the management of any potential traffic jams at the cross border section, following any prolonged stops on the tracks.

The constant monitoring and regular dialogue between the infrastructure managers carried out on a weekly basis have stabilized the emergency situation and have restored a punctuality level comparable to that of the previous year, thus allowing almost all the extraordinary trains to be handled in a satisfactory manner, despite the number of ordinary trains in circulation has almost doubled.

Subsequent actions were focused on the active involvement of railway undertakings, by raising awareness of the need to respect the existing planning and the constant exchange of information between the partner companies and the infrastructure managers. To this end, twelve individual meetings, where each railway undertaking’s’ specific issues were explored took place and a plenary meeting, where the results of the previous meetings were shared and the next steps to be taken were decided, was held.

Following the individual meetings, the task force grouped the feedbacks that it received by problem and by priority and even collected proposals for potential improvement measures.

The next steps include the organization of regular round table meetings with  railway undertakings  in order to ensure increasingly robust and organic cooperation among all the railway system’s stakeholders.