Rollende Landstraße

Piggyback Services: Form of Transport of Cargo, Combined, whereby lorries and truck-trailers are transported on special railway flatcars (ÖKOMBI). As compared with unaccompanied combined transport of cargo, it offers the advantage of simpler and less expensive transhipment; drawbacks are the considerable dead load to be carried, the large amount of capital tied down, and the cost of drivers kept idle during rail transport. Since major transit routes run through Austrian territory, piggyback transportation plays an important role for environmental reasons (Transit Traffic). In 1999, the Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) transported 254,000 heavy goods vehicles, equivalent to 8.5 million tons (158,989 heavy goods vehicles were transported in 1993). In Austria, the majority of piggyback transportation is carried out with neighbouring countries such as Germany, Italy, Slovenia and Hungary.