The closure of the Mont Blanc Tunnel for 3 months a year for the next few years may not produce such harmful effects, as many have pointed out. This was revealed by a forecast study on traffic in the period 2023-2032 (year of expiry of the concession) entrusted by Rav to Steer Davies & Gleave. Net of the effects of the closure of the Mont Blanc Tunnel, the trend traffic in the period covered by the study, although affected by the closures, it is expected to grow by 1.02%.
In 2023 the motorway section managed by Rav saw an increase in total traffic 0.4% compared to 2022 (+15,197 vehicles), attenuated in the last quarter due to the closure of the Mont 9 Blanc Tunnel for works from 16 October to 18 December and of the RAV Morgex Courmayeur section from 16 October to 5 December, the latter for tunnel adaptation works , monitoring and upgrading activities of tunnel systems. In detail light traffic grew by 1.9% (2,638,635 vehicles in 2023 against 2,588,335 in 2022) while heavy traffic decreased by 3.9% (874,620 vehicles in 2023 versus 909,723 in 2022). Compared to 2019 there was a decrease in total traffic of -2.5% (+1.1% for light traffic and -12.2% for heavy traffic).
Between August and September, due to the closure of the Frejus tunnel following the Maurienne landslide, traffic along the Mont Blanc route experienced a “strong increase”, especially of heavy vehicles. “These benefits were strongly impacted by the closure of the Morgex – Courmayeur section from 16 October to 5 December, which by shortening the practicable section of the RAV, led overall to a decrease in kilometers travelled” (-1.8%). This resulted in a drop in revenues in 2023: 28 million and 798 thousand euros compared to 29 million 413 thousand euros in 2022.
Rav is still awaiting approval from the Ministry of the Economic and Financial Plan, which is stuck in 2014. “The failure to update the PEF and the delayed tariff recognitions make the rebalancing increasingly burdensome for users from year to year and difficult to obtain despite doing recourse to contributions and a fairly high takeover value” we read in the balance sheet. For the period 2025-2032 Rav proposes an annual tariff increase to the Ministry by 23.77%. “This value also takes into account the recovery effects of the higher costs/lower revenues connected to the COVID 19 pandemic event”
The investments envisaged by the new PEF proposal for the period 2020-2032 amount to approximately 159 million euros, while the maintenance plan for the period 2024-2028 is equal to 26.1 million euros, with an annual average of 5.2 million euros.
Growing traffic 3.55% in 2023 also for Sav. Last year the motorway stretch saw an increase of light traffic (4.57%) and a substantial invariance of the heavy traffic (-0.09%). As with Rav, traffic volumes recorded a decline in the last quarter linked to the closure of the Mont Blanc Tunnel for approximately nine weeks.
The km traveled also increased, leading to an increase in toll revenues of 2.39% (71 million and 179 thousand euros) compared to the same period in 2022.
The motorway company that manages the stretch also reports in its financial statement report “the general uncertainty of a situation in which the Grantor has not yet approved the PEFs updated by the Company relating to the regulatory periods 2019-2023 and 2024-2028”.
For this last period, Sav presented a proposal last August which envisages investments for a total of 386.8 million euros.
