International passenger and freight transport on Lake Maggiore and along the Locarno–Milan–Venice waterway, and planning

International passenger and freight transport on Lake Maggiore and the Locarno-Milan-Venice waterway Summary for the Ticinus repository Author: Niccolò Salvioni, Locarno — Date: 24 November 2023 — Length: 72 pages (19 attached maps) Subtitle: Transport and territorial planning in Switzerland and Canton Ticino: projects of national interest and Swiss and Ticino territorial and transport planning for the next 30 years (thesis and documents) --- Subject and purpose The document updates and expands a January 2021 study (published on LinkedIn and Academia.edu) on inland navigation between Switzerland and Italy. It systematically reviews the federal, cantonal and international legal frameworks relevant to navigation on the Swiss side of Lake Maggiore and its hypothetical extension — via the sub-lake Ticino river, the Lombard canals (Navigli) and the Po — to Milan and Venice. Four sections (6, 9, 10, 11) were drafted with the support of generative AI, then reworked by the author. Structure and sources reviewed The 17 chapters cover: • the federal constitutional basis for transport (regular passenger transport granted via monopoly concession; no monopoly for freight); • the federal sectoral transport plans of 2006, 2009 and 2015, which never mention Lake Maggiore or the Locarno-Milan-Venice waterway as a navigable network of national importance or abroad; • the Federal Strategic Transport and Territory Plan for Switzerland to 2050 (2021) and the 2025 Energy Strategy, from which the author extracts general principles applicable, by analogy, to inland navigation; • Swiss regional policy and the federal maritime strategy of 2 July 2023; • a comparison of public financing for road, rail and inland navigation in Switzerland and Italy; • the hypothesis of a fluvio-maritime cruise line Locarno-Milan-Venice and its relationship with the TEN-T corridors and the European Commission’s DG REGIO; • the Swiss criteria for classifying a waterway as “of national interest” or “abroad”; • Switzerland-EU bilateral provisions and the Alpine Convention applicable to traffic and alpine tourism; • the “Lakes and Lakeshores” P7 sectoral plan sheet of the Ticino Cantonal Master Plan (19 January 2022); • the federal motion of 30 November 2021 calling for a new convention with Italy on navigation of Lake Maggiore and Lake Lugano, and the cantonal interpellation of 11 February 2022 on the same subject. Summary of the documents examined (ch. 16) The 1992 Italy-Switzerland Convention assigns navigation on Lake Lugano to a Swiss concessionaire and navigation on Lake Maggiore to an Italian concessionaire (Navilaghi, merged since 2018 into the “Consorzio dei laghi”). Subsequent federal plans (2006-2021) have never included Lake Maggiore or the Locarno-Milan-Venice project among national or foreign navigable networks, leaving the matter to the Cantons. Switzerland-EU bilateral provisions and the Alpine Convention offer principles of sustainability, non-discrimination and tourism development applicable by analogy, but with no direct reference to sub-alpine inland navigation. The Ticino Cantonal Master Plan (sheet P7) provides for planning of harbours, boarding points and public navigation, but remains limited to the Swiss shore alone. Both the Federal Council (in response to the 2021 motion) and the Ticino Council of State (in response to the 2022 interpellation) call for a shared solution with Italy, without however taking concrete steps. Conclusions and final reflections (ch. 17) The author identifies a multi-decade planning vacuum: despite 60 km of open water between Locarno and Sesto Calende, international passenger transport remains blocked by the dual monopoly regime (Navilaghi/Società di navigazione del Lago di Lugano) set by the 1992 Convention, which does not allow non-scheduled services (taxi boats, charter/NCC) between the two countries. The Locarno-Milan-Venice association, not being a shipowner, cannot fill this gap. Also missing are: a cantonal naval engineer, up-to-date traffic flow data, port infrastructure (unlike Basel), a bilateral body comparable to the Rhine/Danube commissions, and coordination of minimum outflows from the alpine hydroelectric reservoirs that feed 51% of the Swiss catchment area of Lake Maggiore (Verbano). Signs of openness are identified in Italy’s recent recognition of “fluvio-maritime transport” by the Inter-ministerial Committee for Maritime Policies (Cipom), and in the potential role of Locarno as the terminus of a cruise route to Venice. Among other things, the author proposes a comparison with the tri-partite model (with cabotage rights) of Lake Constance, and envisages potential synergies with Malpensa airport’s “hydrogen valley” project, located just 400 metres from the disused Vizzola Ticino lock. The central conclusion: without a shared regulatory framework between the Confederation, the Canton and Italy, the inland navigation economy remains structurally stunted. Attachments 19 thematic maps: federal sectoral transport plans (2006), the cantonal P7 plan sheet, maps from the Interreg SlowMove project (catchment areas, interchange nodes, tourist flows in Piedmont, Lombardy and Ticino), the perimeters of the Alpine Convention and EUSALP, protected areas of the Ticino Park (Piedmont and Lombardy), the MAB UNESCO “Ticino Valgrande Verbano” Biosphere Reserve, and maps of the Lo-Mi-Ve waterway across its Ticino-Lombard-Piedmontese-Emilian-Venetian perimeter.

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