Privileged transit traffic or corridor traffic is traffic of one country across the territory of another country without usual customs and passport checks.[citation needed] The corresponding line of communication (usually a railway) is called the (privileged) traffic corridor and a train used in this kind of transit is called a corridor train (
German: Korridorzug,
Italian: Treno-corridoio). The reason for such arrangements is usually border changes or border creation which cut through an existing transport corridor.
Examples
Examples are listed with headlines for the country enjoying the transit privilege, not the country offering it.
Belgium
The
Vennbahn was a railway built in 1885, at the time fully in Germany. In 1919 some areas were transferred to Belgium. The railway did as a result cross the new border several times. To handle this, the railway embankment with tracks were also made Belgian territory if inside Germany, without having border controls at the road-rail crossings. The railway was dismantled in 2008, although the embankment still belongs to Belgium.[citation needed]
As a result six German exclaves surrounded by Belgian territory were created as well as one counter-enclave. Five enclaves remain today. The sixth enclave and the sole counter-enclave no longer exist.
Estonia
The road from
Värska to
Ulitina in
Estonia, the only road to the Ulitina area, goes through Russian territory for one kilometre (0.6 mi) of its length, an area called
Saatse Boot. This road has no border control, but there is no connection to any other road in Russia. It is not permitted to stop or walk along the road. This area is a part of
Russia but is also a de facto part of the
Schengen area. This arrangement started in 1991 and remains to the present.[1]
Finland
Finland
leases the 19.6 km (12.2 mi)-long Russian part of the
Saimaa Canal from
Russia and is granted
extraterritoriality rights.
Russian visas are not required just to pass through the canal, but a passport is needed, and it is checked at the border.[2]
Norway
The small road between
Sandvika and
Tunnsjø senter in
Trøndelag county in Norway goes through Sweden for 7 km. It is called road Z821 in Sweden and (nowadays) road 7012 in Norway on both sides of the border. It had the privilege of right-hand traffic also
before 1967 when the rest of Sweden had left-hand traffic. Customs control are only occasional like many small roads over the border.
During the years between the world wars German trains could travel to and from
East Prussia across the
Polish Corridor with legally sealed doors, thereby relieving the passengers of the need to obtain Polish visas.[citation needed]
Russia and Kazakhstan
In former Soviet Union, railways were built before the internal borders were made at present places, or not regarding them. Trains might go a stretch into another country and back. Some examples are:
Since the outbreak of the
COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the train has become privileged transit traffic again due to border closure by Lithuania, and now trains run non-stop through the territory of Lithuania. After the
Russian invasion of Ukraine 2022, this traffic and any border crossing trains between Lithuania and Russia or Belarus are not going.
The railway from
Grobelno through
Rogatec (both in Slovenia) to
Krapina and
Zabok (both in
Croatia) crosses the border to Croatia for short stretches which is trafficked like being inside Slovenia, until it passes the border to Croatia properly with border control (eliminated in 2023 when Croatia joined the
Schengen Area). The railway goes along the
Sutla river, whose old course forms the border. The river was straightened somewhat during the railway construction when this was internal land in Yugoslavia.
During World war II, Germans (including unarmed soldiers)
were allowed to travel by train between Germany and German-occupied Norway, through neutral Sweden in sealed trains without border control, usually
Kornsjø–
Trelleborg.
From 1948, it became possible to travel from
Zittau to
Görlitz through Poland via
Deutsche Reichsbahn. The train has a station in Poland,
Krzewina Zgorzelecka, located 100 metres from the border of the German city of
Ostritz. Passengers could walk between the train and East Germany without border control under surveillance by Polish guards. This route is still in operation as of 2023[update], but since 2007 the inclusion of Poland in the Schengen area ended all passport checks at the German–Polish border.
From 1949 to 1961, trains between
East Berlin and parts of
East Germany went through
West Berlin because no other railways existed. It was easy to deboard the trains when they stopped in West Berlin. This was a major way of
fleeing East Germany. Subsequently, the
Berlin outer ring was built and when in operation from 1961 to 1990, West Berlin was sealed off and the
Berlin Wall built.
Büsingen am Hochrhein is politically part of Germany but is surrounded by
Switzerland and as such economically it forms part of the Swiss customs area, as does the independent principality of
Liechtenstein. As such there have been no border controls between Switzerland and Büsingen am Hochrhein since 4 October 1967.[6] Unofficially, the Italian village of
Campione d'Italia was also part of the Swiss customs area until the end of 2019.
Austria
Trains between
Salzburg and
Kufstein operated (via Germany) as privileged transit until 1997 when the Schengen area removed passport checks at this border. Border checks were reintroduced for them in 2015-2016 because of the
European migrant crisis.[7] The route has been called
Deutsches Eck (German corner).
From the end of the Second World War in 1945 to near the end of the
Cold War in c. 1990, trains with locked doors (to prevent people from boarding or disembarking the train in then-
Communist Hungary without permission) were allowed to go from
Loipersbach-
Schattendorf in northern
Burgenland to
Deutschkreutz in southern Burgenland via the Hungarian city of
Sopron. The 44 minute train ride on a three-car diesel train crossed about 16 km of Hungarian territory up to five times a day traversing between Vienna and Deutschkreutz (previously
Oberpullendorf).[8] Nowadays, after the fall of Communism in Hungary and the accession of Hungary to the European Union, trains from Vienna call at Sopron before continuing on to Deutschkreutz. Austrian fares apply for the whole line.
Czech Republic
After World War II, in 1945, a 2.7 km (1.7 mi) section of the railway line
Varnsdorf (CS) –
Zittau (DE) –
Liberec (CS) through
Porajów became part of
Poland, and international traffic was stopped. In 1951, the Czechoslovak Railways restored the Varnsdorf – Liberec connection based on an agreement with East Germany (GDR) and Poland; ČSD trains had no stop in Polish or German territory. In 1964, a new treatment was signed. From 1972, GDR and Czechoslovakia restored standard international transport on this line. After the expansion of the Schengen area, Varnsdorf – Liberec trains also stop in Germany, but traffic through the Polish section is still based on the transit agreement. The Polish side[clarification needed] gets a charge[clarification needed] from the Czech side but neglects the Polish section and refuses proposals of Czech or German participation in the maintenance.[9]
Switzerland
Basel tram
Line 10 (BLT) operates from Switzerland to Switzerland, passing via
Leymen in France. Transit passengers are not subject to customs rules and checks, but those boarding or alighting in Leymen are subject to customs regulations.
The
Eglisau–Neuhausen railway line is a cross-border railway line in Germany and Switzerland. The line links
Eglisau in the Swiss
canton of Zurich with the
city of Schaffhausen in the Swiss
canton of Schaffhausen, crossing some 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) of the German state of
Baden-Württemberg in between. It thus crosses the
Germany–Switzerland border twice.[10] Trains which pass through German territory without stopping at any of the stations on the line in Germany, are not subject to any customs formalities or restrictions of either country, despite the train and its passengers technically leaving the
Swiss Customs Area, entering the
European Union customs area and entering Swiss customs territory again. An agreement in this respect was entered into by the two countries and became law in 1936.[11]
The
Basel Badischer station is located in Switzerland, but operated by German Railways, and with border control done in the building. It was possible to travel from e.g.
Freiburg on the
Rhine Valley Railway to e.g.
Rheinfelden on the
High Rhine Railway or to
Lörrach on the
Wiese Valley Railway with a train change at Basel Badischer without border and customs control. After Swiss introduction into the Schengen Area, border controls are abolished but customs rules still apply.
A 1.7 km customs road links
Ferney-Voltaire with the French section of
Geneva Airport, which is located entirely within Swiss territory.
A 2.5 km customs road links
Basel with the Swiss section of
EuroAirport, which is located entirely within French territory.
The Netherlands
Provincial road N274 [
nl] is a Dutch
main road that runs from
Roermond to
Brunssum, crossing in and out of
Germany for about 7 km through the German municipality
Selfkant. The road was built in a time when some German municipalities (including Selfkant) were under Dutch control after
World War II. Until 2002 the German section was maintained by the Dutch
Rijkswaterstaat, the road had no level intersections, and it was not possible to leave or join the road from German territory. On February 25, 2002, the corridor was handed over to Germany, giving it the name Landesstraße 410 (L410). The road was further integrated into the German network, making it possible to leave to and join from German territory. In contrast to other German roads, freight trucks are allowed to drive here on Sundays and national holidays, while in the rest of Germany this is prohibited.
Air traffic
Air traffic has in general a number of privileged transit traffic rights, making it suitable to reach enclaves or isolated countries, and for longer-distance flights.
^"Kaliningrad, petite Russie en terre européenne" (in French). 2 November 2009. Negotiations between the two parties resulted in the implementation of measures to take into account the specificity of the enclave from 2002 onwards. These include ... Rail Transit Facilitation Document (FRTD) issued upon the purchase of a train ticket ... Since the entry of Poland and Lithuania into the Schengen area in December 2007, the issuance of free multiple visas has ceased.
Privileged transit traffic or corridor traffic is traffic of one country across the territory of another country without usual customs and passport checks.[citation needed] The corresponding line of communication (usually a railway) is called the (privileged) traffic corridor and a train used in this kind of transit is called a corridor train (
German: Korridorzug,
Italian: Treno-corridoio). The reason for such arrangements is usually border changes or border creation which cut through an existing transport corridor.
Examples
Examples are listed with headlines for the country enjoying the transit privilege, not the country offering it.
Belgium
The
Vennbahn was a railway built in 1885, at the time fully in Germany. In 1919 some areas were transferred to Belgium. The railway did as a result cross the new border several times. To handle this, the railway embankment with tracks were also made Belgian territory if inside Germany, without having border controls at the road-rail crossings. The railway was dismantled in 2008, although the embankment still belongs to Belgium.[citation needed]
As a result six German exclaves surrounded by Belgian territory were created as well as one counter-enclave. Five enclaves remain today. The sixth enclave and the sole counter-enclave no longer exist.
Estonia
The road from
Värska to
Ulitina in
Estonia, the only road to the Ulitina area, goes through Russian territory for one kilometre (0.6 mi) of its length, an area called
Saatse Boot. This road has no border control, but there is no connection to any other road in Russia. It is not permitted to stop or walk along the road. This area is a part of
Russia but is also a de facto part of the
Schengen area. This arrangement started in 1991 and remains to the present.[1]
Finland
Finland
leases the 19.6 km (12.2 mi)-long Russian part of the
Saimaa Canal from
Russia and is granted
extraterritoriality rights.
Russian visas are not required just to pass through the canal, but a passport is needed, and it is checked at the border.[2]
Norway
The small road between
Sandvika and
Tunnsjø senter in
Trøndelag county in Norway goes through Sweden for 7 km. It is called road Z821 in Sweden and (nowadays) road 7012 in Norway on both sides of the border. It had the privilege of right-hand traffic also
before 1967 when the rest of Sweden had left-hand traffic. Customs control are only occasional like many small roads over the border.
During the years between the world wars German trains could travel to and from
East Prussia across the
Polish Corridor with legally sealed doors, thereby relieving the passengers of the need to obtain Polish visas.[citation needed]
Russia and Kazakhstan
In former Soviet Union, railways were built before the internal borders were made at present places, or not regarding them. Trains might go a stretch into another country and back. Some examples are:
Since the outbreak of the
COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the train has become privileged transit traffic again due to border closure by Lithuania, and now trains run non-stop through the territory of Lithuania. After the
Russian invasion of Ukraine 2022, this traffic and any border crossing trains between Lithuania and Russia or Belarus are not going.
The railway from
Grobelno through
Rogatec (both in Slovenia) to
Krapina and
Zabok (both in
Croatia) crosses the border to Croatia for short stretches which is trafficked like being inside Slovenia, until it passes the border to Croatia properly with border control (eliminated in 2023 when Croatia joined the
Schengen Area). The railway goes along the
Sutla river, whose old course forms the border. The river was straightened somewhat during the railway construction when this was internal land in Yugoslavia.
During World war II, Germans (including unarmed soldiers)
were allowed to travel by train between Germany and German-occupied Norway, through neutral Sweden in sealed trains without border control, usually
Kornsjø–
Trelleborg.
From 1948, it became possible to travel from
Zittau to
Görlitz through Poland via
Deutsche Reichsbahn. The train has a station in Poland,
Krzewina Zgorzelecka, located 100 metres from the border of the German city of
Ostritz. Passengers could walk between the train and East Germany without border control under surveillance by Polish guards. This route is still in operation as of 2023[update], but since 2007 the inclusion of Poland in the Schengen area ended all passport checks at the German–Polish border.
From 1949 to 1961, trains between
East Berlin and parts of
East Germany went through
West Berlin because no other railways existed. It was easy to deboard the trains when they stopped in West Berlin. This was a major way of
fleeing East Germany. Subsequently, the
Berlin outer ring was built and when in operation from 1961 to 1990, West Berlin was sealed off and the
Berlin Wall built.
Büsingen am Hochrhein is politically part of Germany but is surrounded by
Switzerland and as such economically it forms part of the Swiss customs area, as does the independent principality of
Liechtenstein. As such there have been no border controls between Switzerland and Büsingen am Hochrhein since 4 October 1967.[6] Unofficially, the Italian village of
Campione d'Italia was also part of the Swiss customs area until the end of 2019.
Austria
Trains between
Salzburg and
Kufstein operated (via Germany) as privileged transit until 1997 when the Schengen area removed passport checks at this border. Border checks were reintroduced for them in 2015-2016 because of the
European migrant crisis.[7] The route has been called
Deutsches Eck (German corner).
From the end of the Second World War in 1945 to near the end of the
Cold War in c. 1990, trains with locked doors (to prevent people from boarding or disembarking the train in then-
Communist Hungary without permission) were allowed to go from
Loipersbach-
Schattendorf in northern
Burgenland to
Deutschkreutz in southern Burgenland via the Hungarian city of
Sopron. The 44 minute train ride on a three-car diesel train crossed about 16 km of Hungarian territory up to five times a day traversing between Vienna and Deutschkreutz (previously
Oberpullendorf).[8] Nowadays, after the fall of Communism in Hungary and the accession of Hungary to the European Union, trains from Vienna call at Sopron before continuing on to Deutschkreutz. Austrian fares apply for the whole line.
Czech Republic
After World War II, in 1945, a 2.7 km (1.7 mi) section of the railway line
Varnsdorf (CS) –
Zittau (DE) –
Liberec (CS) through
Porajów became part of
Poland, and international traffic was stopped. In 1951, the Czechoslovak Railways restored the Varnsdorf – Liberec connection based on an agreement with East Germany (GDR) and Poland; ČSD trains had no stop in Polish or German territory. In 1964, a new treatment was signed. From 1972, GDR and Czechoslovakia restored standard international transport on this line. After the expansion of the Schengen area, Varnsdorf – Liberec trains also stop in Germany, but traffic through the Polish section is still based on the transit agreement. The Polish side[clarification needed] gets a charge[clarification needed] from the Czech side but neglects the Polish section and refuses proposals of Czech or German participation in the maintenance.[9]
Switzerland
Basel tram
Line 10 (BLT) operates from Switzerland to Switzerland, passing via
Leymen in France. Transit passengers are not subject to customs rules and checks, but those boarding or alighting in Leymen are subject to customs regulations.
The
Eglisau–Neuhausen railway line is a cross-border railway line in Germany and Switzerland. The line links
Eglisau in the Swiss
canton of Zurich with the
city of Schaffhausen in the Swiss
canton of Schaffhausen, crossing some 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) of the German state of
Baden-Württemberg in between. It thus crosses the
Germany–Switzerland border twice.[10] Trains which pass through German territory without stopping at any of the stations on the line in Germany, are not subject to any customs formalities or restrictions of either country, despite the train and its passengers technically leaving the
Swiss Customs Area, entering the
European Union customs area and entering Swiss customs territory again. An agreement in this respect was entered into by the two countries and became law in 1936.[11]
The
Basel Badischer station is located in Switzerland, but operated by German Railways, and with border control done in the building. It was possible to travel from e.g.
Freiburg on the
Rhine Valley Railway to e.g.
Rheinfelden on the
High Rhine Railway or to
Lörrach on the
Wiese Valley Railway with a train change at Basel Badischer without border and customs control. After Swiss introduction into the Schengen Area, border controls are abolished but customs rules still apply.
A 1.7 km customs road links
Ferney-Voltaire with the French section of
Geneva Airport, which is located entirely within Swiss territory.
A 2.5 km customs road links
Basel with the Swiss section of
EuroAirport, which is located entirely within French territory.
The Netherlands
Provincial road N274 [
nl] is a Dutch
main road that runs from
Roermond to
Brunssum, crossing in and out of
Germany for about 7 km through the German municipality
Selfkant. The road was built in a time when some German municipalities (including Selfkant) were under Dutch control after
World War II. Until 2002 the German section was maintained by the Dutch
Rijkswaterstaat, the road had no level intersections, and it was not possible to leave or join the road from German territory. On February 25, 2002, the corridor was handed over to Germany, giving it the name Landesstraße 410 (L410). The road was further integrated into the German network, making it possible to leave to and join from German territory. In contrast to other German roads, freight trucks are allowed to drive here on Sundays and national holidays, while in the rest of Germany this is prohibited.
Air traffic
Air traffic has in general a number of privileged transit traffic rights, making it suitable to reach enclaves or isolated countries, and for longer-distance flights.
^"Kaliningrad, petite Russie en terre européenne" (in French). 2 November 2009. Negotiations between the two parties resulted in the implementation of measures to take into account the specificity of the enclave from 2002 onwards. These include ... Rail Transit Facilitation Document (FRTD) issued upon the purchase of a train ticket ... Since the entry of Poland and Lithuania into the Schengen area in December 2007, the issuance of free multiple visas has ceased.