Indeed, congestion pricing as proposed for the Gotthard is already working Stockholm (1SEK ~ 0.1 CHF). The objective is to discourage everyone driving at the same time.
1. Stockholm is a city. They also have congestion pricing in Singapore and many other places. The Gotthard is a transit route. Yes, I can when I drive from Zurich to Milan estimate my time reasonable well... but any Dutch caravan going from Zeeland to Italy? They have no fair chance to know how many traffic jams they will meet on the way and when they will be there. It was the same with the channel trains during covid: Everyone was supposed to book a time slot with tons of cars arriving early or late... just causing the loading car park to turn into a mess. Do we really want every car park on Swiss highways fill up with Dutch and Belgian RVs waiting for an hour to save 10 CHFs?
And just for the record: Many of those transit customers already pay 40 CHF for a Vignette which they will use exactly twice: Once on their way to Italy and once back. Austria with their short term vignette is already a lot friendlier to tourists. For those who are not aware: the locals in Uri charge RVs 25 CHFs to park on a highway parking place for the night... only in Switzerland.
2. The Gotthard is actually not the tunnel with the most traffic congestion hours per year in Switzerland. The Gubrist wins by quite a margin. Why not charge the people there? Let me guess: Because the people in the jam there are locals?
Everyone keeps on talking about alternative routes... which ones exactly? The San Bernadino is great if you live in the Zurich area. But for transit coming from Basel is it quite a bit extra. Nobody likes to be in a traffic jam... and neither do the tourists. But there are just very few good ways to cross the Alps, essentially the Gotthard and the Brenner. Pushing up the prices without offering an alternative will only benefit one party: easy jet.
Thanks for letting us know what you could tolerate.
I don't think I could tolerate many more of your posts.
You are not making sense. You state that US roads are falling apart and there's corruption despite them having high toll charges.
Your answer for Switzerland is to have high toll charges too - to what end?
Forum member Bishopscourt, the EF authority on all Swiss topics, could perhaps make a voluntary contribution every time he uses the tunnel.
Parking on a parking or parking on the motorway? There's no optimal answer. About the times for higher price, there's some data. Whole days have had high traffic, so put a price on the date. North-South bound, Ascension weekend 2015-2022 (except 2020 and 2021 for covid). Quite hard to miss a 24h or even 48h time slot.
It wouldn't hurt.
This is the interesting issue. If you check online in other languages about the best option to cross the Alps: it's the Gotthard because you only pay the vignette, thus cheap. Mont Blanc and Frejus tunnels in France are not recommended online because "more expensive".
Anyway, I learned to be around Gotthard before 7AM and after 22hh00, and it works fine.
a toll will have little impact on the traffic at the tunnel, maybe forcing some extra burden onto Bernardino which may not be the best option; if anyone has seen old Dutch RVs and crappy cars towing tin boxes break down up there, you are not alone.
a toll will spread the cost of renovating and building out new solutions onto those using it though.
if you look at the Arlbergtunnel in Austria, it's around €10.50 for a car each way. That does little to reduce the traffic but pays for maintenance. Which takes place every 5 years or so and sends traffic up the pass....
The Ösis do it well though, with an annual Vignette, you get an annual tunnel pass discounted from €100+ to around €65. We have this on two cars because we travel this route often.
I dont need data to know that there will be traffic on a public holiday... the question is: Do you genuinely want to reduce traffic or do you want to milk the tourists? If the fee is supposed to change behaviour: what behaviour do you want to achieve? People not using the caravans and fly on vacation? Swiss people taking the train to Ticino? The whole debate is very unconstructive... it boils down to the Canton of Uri saying "we dont want the traffic and we dont care where else they will go". And that wont really work well...
And about the price: the Brenner costs 11 EUR single ticket. A ten day vignette in Austria 9.90 EUR. Even if your trip is longer than the ten days and you need two: Pretty much on par with the 40 CHFs, no? The BeNeLux and Western German cars come through the Gotthard because it is simply the by far shortest route. Eastern Germans, Polish go through the Brenner... to change that would the toll need to be in the hundreds if you want to account for the full costs to drive a long diversion. And I absolutely positively dont want them all on the Passstrasse... do we put a toll on that as well?
Am I right that large Trucks are banned from the motorways at night and Sundays/public holidays? If so shouldn’t there be an exception for the Gotthard and access routes?
And where should this end? Make the customs work outside of office hours?!
Indeed, it's not ensured a fee on the Gotthard would change the behavior. People may just use the San Bernardino. Or simply do nothing but pay.
If we go for the root cause, it's only people wanting to travel days on the same date because holidays. Somehow the school system have organized themselves across regions and countries to shift a bit the start/end dates and this helps to reduce bottlenecks. But, other holidays along the year are on the same date and this is when problems happen.
From here to 2032 there's no relief, and there's a revival in RV culture. RVs don't excel in stop-go traffic in an uphill incline. So, things will get worse, and we'll see if it's only Uri or the rest of cantons joins into enforcing fees.
Where? I know they are banned at certain times in France but I didn’t know it applied in Switzerland as well.
By 2032, the Gotthard tunnel should have two functioning lanes each direction open to the public.
Literally everywhere in CH. Google "Nachtfahrverbot"...
Correct. Though the ban is a general one, not just on motorways. It applies from 10pm thru 5am, on sundays, and certain public holidays.
Exceptions apply, but they require an individual permit.
But only one lane will be used per tunnel when both are open. Capacity by road must not be increased.
There’s an unfortunate detail: back on 1994 there was referendum named “the Alps Initiative”.
https://www.alptransit-portal.ch/en/…nitiative/true
The outcome of this vote became Art. 84 on Swiss Constitution. The bottleneck is not a mistake, it’s by design.
https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/1999/404/en#art_84
So far, the plan is to only have 1 very wide lane in each tunnel in each direction in order to comply with Swiss constitution.
Of course, the restriction from 1994 was a result of popular vote. Another popular vote could make possible to have 2 lanes in each direction. Trucks from 1994 are very different from trucks today. The new Gotthard rail tunnel is there, not sure how many more containers can be transported by train instead of truck. There’s also the limit to cargo trains during night because noise. So, a whole mess.
I very much doubt that a toll would do much to change habits and there would be as much traffic through the Gotthard as today. Holiday makers are like sheep and they all have to drive from Germany through Switzerland to Italy at the same time.
It always amused me to see Germans filling up with petrol just before crossing the border into Switzerland when petrol was a good 20 cts cheaper on the Swiss side.
That's a bit harsh. Even with staggered school holidays, there is still a block in the summer when you need to have your holiday if you have children.
If I was retired, with a camper van, there's no way I'd go to Italy in peak season but there lies another problem - many campsites in Italy have a relatively short season and are closed at other times.
Are you sure they werent filling up on diesel ? Cause that's a lot cheaper in Germany... Unlike Swiss do Germans not really have the attitude that you should buy in country... as demonstrated by "gas station tourism" to Luxembourg on a daily basis.
If only religious days were staggered too. It's a shame that Catholics and Reformed did not chose different days for the liturgical calendar
Shouldn't these people be at their home or place of worship on these days?
They are not supposed to be a holiday from religion!