On 27 March 2026, the Austrian Ministry of Transport published Regulation No. 70, amending and supplementing Regulation Bgbl. II No. 338/2025, updating the calendar of restrictions for heavy goods vehicles on the A13 Brennerautobahn in light of new construction and traffic management requirements. The measure applies to three key motorway axes: the A12 Inntalautobahn, the A13 Brennerautobahn and the A14 Rheintal/Walgau.
At the centre of the restrictions is the structural rehabilitation of the Luegbrücke, the Lueg bridge spanning the Inn gorge on the A13, along the Tyrolean section between Brenner and Nößlach. Since 1 January 2025, Asfinag has imposed a standard regime of single-lane traffic in each direction across the entire structure to reduce the load on infrastructure that remains in critical condition during the overall renovation works. During peak traffic periods, such as summer and major holiday travel days, the operator temporarily opens a second lane, but combines this with targeted bans on heavy vehicles to avoid overloading the bridge. For 2026, Asfinag expects around 180 days per direction with two lanes available, largely concentrated between June and September.
The ban applies to vehicles over 7.5 tonnes — rigid trucks, articulated vehicles and combinations with trailers exceeding the overall threshold — whose route includes the A13 section between the Nößlach junction and the Brenner Nord junction in the direction of the state border. It is therefore not a blanket ban across the entire motorway, but a restriction linked to destination routing, affecting carriers that must use the section where the Lueg bridge is located.
The operational calendar distinguishes between two types of days. Public holiday and bridge days are subject to a ban from 07:00 to 22:00, effectively blocking most heavy freight traffic throughout the working day. The dates concerned are 2 April 2026 (Thursday), 13 May (Wednesday), 22 May (Friday), 3 June (Wednesday) and 2 October (Friday). Saturdays, from late May through September, are subject instead to a ban from 07:00 to 15:00. These include more than twenty consecutive days covering the entire summer period, starting with the last two Saturdays in May (23 and 30 May), followed by June (6 and 27 June, with 3 June already counted as a full-day restriction), and then every Saturday in July, August and September. The calendar concludes on Friday 2 October, the final day with a 07:00–22:00 ban.
For operators, the key daily planning tool is the Fahrkalender Luegbrücke 2026, the operational calendar developed by Asfinag together with the ministry and the Tyrolean authorities. The document consolidates all essential planning information in a single grid: days with one lane per direction, days with two lanes available, dates with heavy vehicle bans, and days when traffic metering is expected, particularly around Kufstein and Kiefersfelden.
The impact on international hauliers operating along the Italy–Germany Brenner axis is significant. Days with bans from 07:00 to 22:00 force operators to concentrate transit during the preceding or following night hours, while Saturday morning bans particularly affect tourism-related logistics and cross-border just-in-time supply chains, which traditionally rely on weekends to complete distribution rounds. Business associations in South Tyrol have long argued that the works on the Lueg bridge have turned the Brenner corridor into a “structural bottleneck”, with repercussions for both export competitiveness and the reliability of inbound supplies. Some industry stakeholders have called for a relaxation of the night-time truck ban or a revision of the calendar, but the Austrian political response has so far prioritised safety and infrastructure protection.
These measures overlap, without replacing, Austria’s general calendar of HGV bans and the existing Tyrolean weekly restrictions, creating a layered system of limitations that weighs heavily on international freight traffic along the Brenner corridor. The “Brenner dispute” — as industry associations have described it for years — thus enters a new phase, this time structural in nature: no longer only environmental constraints or border metering, but the long timelines of a major rehabilitation project that, according to Asfinag, will affect the infrastructure throughout 2026 and beyond.
