Brenner Base Tunnel Pollution from this traffic is a major concern. The hope is to relieve this situation by greatly improving the railway connection between North Tyrol and South Tyrol with the new tunnel, which will allow trains to cross the Alps much faster. Currently, speeds in the Brenner region barely exceed due to the steepness of the existing tracks, which cross the pass at an elevation of 1,371 metres above sea level. The travel time from Innsbruck to Bolzano will be reduced from 2 hours to 50 minutes. The project is funded by Austria and Italy, and a contribution by the European
Brenner Pass to the German word for somebody who clears woodland. A name for the pass itself appears for the first time in 1328 as "ob dem Prenner" (German for "above the Prenner"). The Romans regularised the mountain pass at Brenner, which had already been under frequent use during the prehistoric eras since the most recent Ice Age. Brenner Pass, however, was not the first trans-Alpine Roman road to become regularised under the Roman Empire. The first Roman road to cross the Alpine range, Via Claudia Augusta, connected Verona in northern Italy with Augusta Vindelicorum (modern-day Augsburg) in the Roman province of