Easter traffic easing on Europe’s main north-south axis

Tailbacks are easing on the approach to the Gotthard tunnel Keystone

Tailbacks on Europe's most direct north-south route through the Gotthard tunnel were easing, after columns of vehicles up to 10 kilometres long were reported on the route on Friday.

Frustrated holiday makers making the journey south to Italy for Easter spent much of Friday trapped in their cars, after traffic ground to a halt on the approach to the Gotthard tunnel.

At one stage, there were tailbacks stretching 10 kilometres. The Swiss Touring Club earlier issued warnings to motorists to avoid the A2 motorway through the tunnel.

The Club recommended that motorists use alternative routes through the St Bernard Pass, the Simplon Pass, or the Lötschberg. Traffic on these routes flowed more or less smoothly throughout Friday.

Rail services through the Gotthard resumed in the early hours of Friday morning following a derailment on Thursday, which disrupted international services.

Worsening congestion

Easter traffic congestion on the A2 has become almost routine in recent years, but this year has been particularly bad. Local media and politicians blame recent policy changes for the worsening situation.

At the beginning of 2001, Switzerland introduced a new road haulage tax and implemented its part of a bilateral agreement with the European Union (EU).

Foreign goods lorries now have to pay a flat rate of €200 for a transit passage through Switzerland from Basel to Chiasso or vice-versa. At the same time, Switzerland opened its roads to lorries that weigh up to 34 tons and to a limited number of lorries that weigh up to 40 tons.

But Felix Walter, the head of a government sponsored research programme on transport policies, told swissinfo that the normal growth trend, rather than recent policy changes, were responsible for the breakdown in north-south traffic.

“The effects of tolerating heavy lorries and the new tax cancel themselves out”, Walter said. “In fact, it is the annual increase of goods traffic that creates congestions; as it happens, the bottleneck this time round is in customs checks at the Chiasso border.”

Walter said some such breakdown had been anticipated long ago. “Our estimates have always been that transit road haulage through Switzerland will increase from the present 1.2 million lorries per year to about 1.6 million by the end of the decade, when it will decrease again and stabilise at about 1.2 million”, he said.

swissinfo with agencies