Brenner Base Tunnel Brenner Base Tunnel The Brenner Base Tunnel (; ) is a planned railway tunnel through the base of the Eastern Alps beneath the Brenner Pass. It will run from near Innsbruck, in Austria, to Fortezza, in Italy, replacing part of the current Brenner railway. The line is part of Line 1, the Berlin to Palermo route, of Trans-European Transport Networks (TEN-T). The Brenner Pass, in the Alps at the border between Austria and Italy, is one of the most important traffic connections between northern and southern Europe, and the motorway going over it is infamous for its frequent traffic jams.
Brenner Pass of above . As a result, air and noise pollution have generated heavy debate in regional and European politics. , about 1.8 million trucks crossed the Europa Bridge per year. In order to ease the road traffic, there are plans to upgrade the Brenner Railway from Verona to Innsbruck with a series of tunnels, including the Brenner Base Tunnel underneath Brenner. While the official groundbreaking of the tunnel had taken place in 2006 (with survey tunnels drilled in the same year), substantial work did not begin until 2011. Funding issues have delayed the tunnel's scheduled date of completion from 2022