This is the result of a situation discussion with the state and police, said Asfinag managing director Stefan Siegele in an APA interview on Tuesday. Then you react depending on the situation. An appeal was made specifically to truck drivers to adapt.
Appeal to road users
“As soon as one cog doesn’t work, the whole thing falls apart,” said Siegele, referring to the situation a week and a half ago. The Brenner motorway had to be closed for many hours at that time. The cause was trucks that got stuck due to the snow and ignored the current ban on overtaking. Accordingly, Siegele made an “appeal” to road users on Tuesday to adapt both their equipment and driving behavior to the winter conditions.
“Chain of Unfortunate Circumstances”
From his point of view, the motorway operator was not at fault. When asked about criticism from political parties, Siegele said: “We didn’t do anything wrong.” Rather, the week before last they were confronted with a “chain of unfortunate circumstances”. It snowed a lot more than forecast and the stuck trucks blocked all lanes in a particularly unfavorable place.
According to Siegele, a similar scenario cannot be completely ruled out in the future. However, the managing director promised that it would not be possible to hit the same number of trucks again with the early activation of the dosing system. This will be activated at 5 a.m. because the heaviest snowfall is expected for two hours from then on. At Kufstein, trucks would only be allowed onto the Inntal motorway (A12) or the following Brenner motorway in a “dosed” manner. Apart from that, Asfinag is preparing for the “heavy snow event” as usual.
Warning level orange in parts of Tyrol
The weather service Geosphere Austria issued a snow warning on Tuesday for the upper Wipptal, the southern Stubai and the Ötztal Alps, among others. The “orange” warning level applies from Tuesday evening to Wednesday morning, it said in a release. The snowfall limit drops to 900 to 700 meters. Half a meter of fresh snow is expected in the most affected regions, it was said. State Security Councilor Astrid Mair (ÖVP), as well as Elmar Rizzoli, head of the Tyrolean Center for Crisis and Disaster Management, called for the warnings to be taken seriously. Avalanche warning level 3 also applies and there is therefore a considerable risk of avalanches.
150 trucks had to be towed away
The rainfall on February 23rd, which brought up to 70 centimeters of fresh snow in places, led to chaos and massive traffic jams on Tyrol’s highways. The Brenner motorway had to be closed from midday until 10 p.m. According to the state, the obstructions were caused by several “poorly equipped heavy vehicles” that got stuck on the highway. Other trucks tried to overtake these vehicles and also got stuck. These truck drivers used the second and third lanes despite driving and overtaking bans. The path was blocked for cars and especially clearing vehicles and it was no longer possible to get through.
Picture gallery: Brenner motorway closed for hours after heavy snowfall
(Photo: MARKUS ANGERER (APA)) Bild 1/12
View gallery
As a result, more than 150 heavy vehicles had to be towed individually over a section of around three kilometers – with continued snowfall – at great expense. 300 people who were stuck in a traffic jam for up to ten hours were looked after by numerous emergency services.
