What’s it like to be stuck in peak holiday traffic trying to cross the Alps

The traffic jam at the Gotthard eats up patience and time. SWI swissinfo.ch / Marc Leutenegger

Traffic jams in front of the Gotthard tunnel are the bane of holidaymakers heading South on vacation. Political parties across the spectrum are calling for a tunnel toll. But how bad is the situation really in traffic-congested Switzerland? Figures, facts—and what drivers can do to stay safe and sane.

A river of brake lights confronts us like a red wall. Between the motorway entrances of Wassen and Göschenen, our hopes for a smooth passage are dashed.

This is the normal situation on the Gotthard route and no longer just during the holiday season. The 17 km road tunnel – the longest in the world at the time of its construction in 1980 – runs from Göschenen in the canton of Uri in the north to Airolo in canton Ticino to the south.

We come to a standstill. Everything slows down, only our pulse quickens. We’re stuck in a traffic jam.

On more than 100 days a year, traffic is backed up at the bottleneck between northern and southern Switzerland, where cars are squeezed into a single tunnel lane in each direction.

Is it getting worse? The figures confirm how motorists feel: According to the Federal Roads Office (Astra), traffic jams at the Gotthard increased by a factor of three between 2012 and 2022 alone, to 1,800 per year.

And the latest figures are even higher. This is because congestion is growing disproportionately at the Gotthard: 1,544 congestion hours in front of the north portal and 1,657 in front of the south portal are the figures for 2024.

The density stress in Switzerland can be seen and felt at the Gotthard.

Lots of solutions that aren’t solutions

The record for Gotthard traffic jams is five hours waiting time to cover 28km set in 1999 when the San Bernardino route, the most important alternative route to the Gotthard, was closed due to flooding. It was equalled seven years ago when a bus caught fire in the San Bernardino tunnel.

Even without such unforeseen incidents, traffic jams last about half as long, with a waiting time of two to three hours at the Gotthard on peak days. Meanwhile, over seven million vehicles travel through the tunnel every year. In 1981, the first full year of operation, there were not even half as many.

Can it go on like this? There is no shortage of ideas to make traffic on the longest road tunnel in the Alps more fluid. But they are unlikely to gain political majority support.

Surge pricing to help spread the traffic? It would disadvantage southern Switzerland which already lags behind in road investment.

A system with pre-booked slots for travelling through? Not practical because waiting areas would have to be built in the narrow valleys.

A car shuttle train modelled on the Vereina Tunnel? This would likely increase traffic and put even more pressure on the region.

Is a tourist toll the answer?

The idea of opening two lanes in both directions as soon as the second new Gotthard tunnel – built for safety reasons – is completed in the next decade is also making the rounds.

It would be a violation of the will of the people, especially the so-called Alpine Initiative voted on 30 years ago to protect Swiss mountains from transit traffic.

The only proposal that is equally supported by left-wing and right-wing parties is transit fees for tourists. However, it is unclear whether such a fee would be legally compatible with the land transport agreement between Switzerland and the European Union. Foreign drivers currently only need a motorway sticker to access Swiss road infrastructure. It costs CHF40 (about $50) and entitles the holder to use all Swiss motorways for one year.

For the time being, restrictions and accompanying measures will remain in place at the Gotthard: when there is a lot of traffic, the speed on the A2 motorway will be reduced. Göschenen and Wassen close their motorway entrances when there is a traffic jam of three kilometres or more to prevent traffic from avoiding the motorway.

Four tips for travelling through Switzerland via the Gotthard

1) There is not just one, but four important north-south routes through Switzerland and its mountain massif, the Alps. In addition to the Gotthard route, these are the San Bernardino route, the Simplon route (car transport, chargeable) and the route over the Great St. Bernard (chargeable tunnel).

2) The speed of the routes varies depending on the departure and destination points and the volume of traffic. From a traffic jam time of one hour at the Gotthard, for example, the bypass via the San Bernardino Tunnel is worthwhile for all traffic – from north-eastern Switzerland to Basel.

3) If there is a traffic jam of half an hour to an hour, it is worth travelling over the pass road in the warm season. There’s spectacular scenery and refreshment stops along the way on top. It is important to leave the A2 motorway in good time.

If there is a short traffic jam, you can also stay on the A2 and use the exit lane towards Göschen, which begins shortly after Wassen. But be careful: the decision in favour of the pass route is final. The exit lane does not allow you to change lanes back onto the A2. And in Göschenen and Wassen, the motorway entrance is closed after three kilometres of traffic jam.

4) If you can, plan your journey well in advance and try to avoid the main congestion times by adopting anti-cyclical behaviour. The Touring Club Switzerland (TCS) offers a data-based traffic jam forecast by day on its website.

Have we reached the three kilometer traffic jam threshold yet? The traffic jam grew steadily during our journey. The satellite navigation showed that we’d lost a measly 10 minutes on our departure, a figure that it then constantly revised upwards. Now it stands at 40 minutes.

The Dutchman in front of us moves forward a few metres.

Motorway nation reaches its limits

Believe it or not, Switzerland is actually a motorway country. The network planned in the 1960s has only been expanded slightly in recent times and the last so-called bottleneck elimination, a selective expansion of particularly congested routes, was rejected by the people in 2024.

Nevertheless, Switzerland has one of the densest motorway networks in the world for its size. And the figures show that it is unrivalled in its maintenance efforts.

However, the network is increasingly reaching its limits. Traffic congestion is a daily occurrence in the centres and conurbations and, at 87%, is clearly the most frequent cause of traffic jams.

The problem is the tipping points. While traffic increased by 0.7% in 2024, congestion hours rose by 13.9% – in other words, many times over. According to the Federal Roads Office, even minor disruptions cause the system to collapse.

Billions in losses year after year

Still, in an international comparison Swiss motorists are doing reasonably well.

The Inrix 2024 Global Traffic ScorecardExternal link ranks Zurich 48^th among cities where people lose the most time in traffic. Basel is ranked 129^th and Geneva 209^th.

Inrix

The Tomtom Traffic IndexExternal link, which has different criteria and data, ranks Zurich 80^th, Geneva 87^th and Basel 278^th.

In Istanbul, New York or Bangalore, people are used to a different level of congestion and most European metropolises are also ahead of the Zurich conurbation in terms of congestion times – at least today. However, if immigration, leisure traffic and labour mobility continue to grow at current rates, the question arises: is Swiss traffic at risk of a major collapse?

The economic damage is already enormous. As early as 2019, the Federal Office for Spatial Development estimated the annual delay costs alone at over CHF3 billion per year. That’s more than the construction of the new Gotthard tunnel.

Hopes on autonomous driving

Things are moving forward again on the Gotthard. A Belgian in an Alfa Romeo 4C sports car has joined the rear. Why doesn’t he take a pleasure drive over the St Gotthard Pass instead?

The automotive future looks different from the Belgian’s mid-engine Italian sports car. The first robo-taxis are on the road in the US and China. More and more vehicles have adaptive cruise control and drive semi-autonomously.

This is changing the situation. Many traffic jams in heavy traffic are caused by the wave effect: when a car brakes abruptly, it forces the cars behind it to brake as well. The reaction continues like a wave and intensifies with each new vehicle involved.

A tried and tested antidote on the motorway is a speed limit of 80 km/h, which has been proven to promote smooth driving. Automatic distance keeping is even more effective.

“All it takes is for five to ten per cent of road users to be travelling with modern driver assistance systems to see a significant effect,” says traffic engineer Kevin Riehl on Swiss public TV SRFExternal link.

Autonomous and networked vehicles will maximise these effects. Is now the time to expand the roads?

The Dutchman drives forwards again. We signal, turn right into the long exit lane towards Göschenen and then turn round. We’ve had enough of the traffic jam.

Göschenen: Life in the last village before the Gotthard portal has to adapt to the traffic jams in summer. Getting to and from the motorway is difficult almost every day. SWI swissinfo.ch / Marc Leutenegger

Edited by Balz Rigendinger. Adapted from German by DeepL/ac