(Mont Blanc is 65 Euro return)
What they need to do is put cars and trucks on trains, ideally between Germany and Italy. Perhaps also between the two portals. This would halve the journey time and reduce the load on other Swiss roads.
At the same time put in a reservation system keeping 20% (or so) of capacity to local traffic.
I really don’t understand why these trains are not already in place.
In terms of capacity, you can't do better than the channel tunnel car shuttle which does an average 300 cars per hour. In off-peak periods you'll have trouble filling the trains (as the motorway will be faster), while at peak times you can hardly make a dent in the flow (Gotthard is 1000+ vehicles/hour) and waiting times for loading/unloading will be similar.
People already pay more than that in wasted petrol and time.
Unless I need to take the car - for an extended camping trip for example, I always take the train as a foot passenger when going to Italy.
Yes, but they only have to wait several weekends in the year, because for the rest of year there is no queue, charge or not. For the rest of the year the shuttle trains, loading areas and tunnel schedule slots would not be used.
And I think this would be appealing to freight companies as well
The irony is that people driving literal mobile homes that could cross after midnight and stop to sleep in the first few parkings after the tunnel, well...they don't do it. When you have a slooooow dinner in Milano, and drive back at 22h00-23h00 you find that there's literally no one in visible distance driving across the tunnel. Also, crossing before 7AM in the south direction works fine. Tried that over the Ascension weekend and no wait time.
There is still a big demand to cross from Switzerland to Italy and a charge will not solve the congestion problem, unless of course, it is so monumental that nobody can afford it (think Chf 150 ++)
It does not look like everyone is happy with the proposal:
Source 1: https://www.worldradio.ch/news/bites…angers-ticino/
Source 2 (german): https://www.blick.ch/politik/wir-wue…d18642065.html
The people who have to wait more or less know that they will have to wait and budget with a loss of time there. It is trying to fix something that few people are really asking for.
Maybe for wealthy people it is a big inconvenience/loss to have to wait this long. There is that saying.....you either have money and no time or time and no money. It would be sort of in my way a regressive tax on the not well off people by taxing the tunnel.
I can also understand there are commuters. In such a case I would keep the Gotthard pass exclusive to them during the peak periods.
At the same time, about 25% of housing units in Ticino are registered as 2nd residences. People living north of the Alps during the week and spending some days on a sunnier place have the voting rights, social influence, and benefit from reduced congestion.
Whatever the people driving from NL to IT while pulling a caravan think, it's doesn't matter that much.
That may work to reduce the queueing and peak times and would give those who didn't have a tight-schedule encourage to traverse at a less busy time.
If it was electronically controlled with number-plate recognition then there could be an opt-out for locals and workers.
no discount/exemption for locals their cars cause same amount of congestion as any other car.
Further, it would mean more stress for the pass, and other roads in the area - moving highway traffic to small village roads...
It frustrates me how the answer lately to infrastructure issues rarely is "fix the infrastructure"; but more "tax the people".