TRIESTE – Sweet (Single Window for ExcEptional Transport) is the name of the cooperation project between Italy and Austria presented in recent days to speed up oversize load procedures and improve road safety. The cross-border initiative between the regions of Veneto, Friuli Venezia Giulia and Carinthia is financed by the European Regional Development Fund and Interreg V-A Italy-Austria 2014-2020. The budget amounts to 797,837.92 Euros to promote better governance of exceptional transport in the cross-border area and disseminate an integrated mobility solution.
In particular, the project will make it possible to speed up the procedures for issuing authorizations relating to exceptional transport and for planning the passage of vehicles along the road network of the partners involved.
This type of transport requires authorization from the local authorities. Still, the rules and procedures vary from Member State to Member State, from region to region, and even from province to province, resulting in delays and difficulties for both hauliers and authorities. The current regional tools in use in Veneto, Friuli Venezia Giulia and Carinthia are not interoperable and do not allow the sharing of information.
The goal is to develop a standard solution considering the directives of the European Union and the operators’ requests. The Sweet solution will allow access via a single window, interoperability with existing solutions and new features to simplify the authorization process and provide real-time monitoring. Transport corridors will be clearly and jointly defined, especially concerning border areas. Legal analysis will be carried out to harmonize and improve the logistics of oversized load. An overall reduction in time and costs for obtaining authorizations, greater security, and better transport governance in the cross-border area is expected.
«Road transport between Italy and Austria – highlighted the Regional Councilor for Infrastructure of Friuli Venezia Giulia, Graziano Pizzimenti – is of fundamental importance for the two countries’ economy, which is why projects of this type have a strategic significance. The intention is to make an activity in this experimental phase become structural, also looking for possible future developments that can improve the management of the road network along with the entire network. Knowing in detail the flow of heavy vehicles that travel our roads is an essential fact on the basis of which we can then make medium-long term decisions in the field of mobility».
A study by Autovie Venete found that an average of 6366 requests for exceptional transport is processed annually along the road network of Friuli Venezia Giulia and Veneto; 3815 applications are handled directly by the Venetian Autovie while 2551 are handled indirectly. Currently, the time required for issuing permits is ten days for passage along the motorway network compared to the 15 days required by law.