As the second-longest tunnel in the Ukrainian rail network, it is part of Europe's Corridor V (Italy-Slovenia-Hungary-Slovakia-Ukraine), thus linking Lviv in western Ukraine to cities such as Venice and Trieste in northern Italy, as well as various other locations along the route in Slovenia and Hungary.

In time, its capacity no longer met increasing demand, thus it was decided to make a new bore parallel to the existing one.

Breakthrough was achieved in January 2016[2] and it was inaugurated in a ceremony by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in late May 2018.

As a result, the tunnel can now handle 50 to 100 trains daily, nearly 60% of all rail traffic between Ukraine and the European Union,[3] and it will reduce journey times between Lviv and Ukrainian border town Chop, in a bid to facilitate exports of domestic products to neighbouring countries.

[3] In addition to providing financing, technical expertise was bought in from the EU, especially from Austria, to support the development of the tunnel.