Between Black Friday and Christmas, La Poste broke a new record by delivering more than 22 million parcels. This explosion of deliveries has led to a notable increase in truck transport, causing concern among several elected environmentalists who fear that the yellow giant will turn away from rail.
Faced with the boom in online shopping, La Poste has developed several new regional sorting centers in recent years. Facilities have thus emerged in Vétroz (VS), Pratteln (BL) or Cadenazzo (TI), places ideally located close to the railway lines.
However, contrary to what one might expect, these centers do not use rail for shipping or receiving packages: everything goes by truck. A situation which saddens the Geneva Green national councilor Delphine Klopfenstein. “This mode of transport has a direct impact on the climate and on the congestion of our roads,” she laments Monday in La Matinale. With other elected environmentalists, she challenged the Federal Council on the issue.
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More than 80 connections every day
La Poste, for its part, defends its approach by insisting on the fact that rail remains a priority for the company. “The largest sorting centers in terms of volumes are all connected to rail,” specifies Stefan Dauner, spokesperson for the Post Office, at the RTS microphone.
With 84 connections every day, one in two packages travels at least partly by train. In Graubünden, for example, from the center of Untervaz, there are only seven kilometers by truck, before a transfer to the rail in Landquart.
And if the company recognizes that certain sorting centers are disconnected, it cites two main reasons for this: insufficient parcel volumes and, above all, the lack of available paths on the rail network. In other words, there is not enough space on the railway tracks to increase the number of freight trains, making the use of road transport essential in certain cases.
Etienne Kocher/hkr
Swiss
