The southern bridge serves the Rhein-Main-Bahn from Mainz via Darmstadt to Aschaffenburg and the Mainbahn running south of the Main from Mainz to Frankfurt (Main) Hbf, on which the S 8 line between Mainz, Frankfurt (Main) Airport and Frankfurt also runs.
After the Roman bridge and Charlemagne's Rhine bridge, which burned down shortly after its completion, the southern bridge in Mainz from 1862 was the first fixed Rhine bridge in Mainz, which until then only had a ship bridge. At the same time, it was the fourth railway bridge over the Rhine after the Waldshut–Koblenz bridge on the Upper Rhine, the Kehl bridge and the Cathedral bridge in Cologne.
While today it connects two federal states - Rhineland-Palatinate on the left bank of the Rhine and Hesse on the right bank - both banks belonged to the Grand Duchy of Hesse or the People's State of Hesse at the time of construction and up to 1945, to its left bank of the Rhine province of Rheinhessen and to its right bank of the Rhine province of Starkenburg .