Swiss brace for major Easter traffic jams

Long traffic jams and major traffic obstructions expected at Easter Keystone-SDA

The Swiss Federal Roads Office is again expecting traffic jams and major traffic obstructions on the north-south axis over the Easter holidays. A high volume of traffic is also expected on feeder roads on the Swiss Plateau due to caravans travelling south.

+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox

Easter traffic is expected to start early on Wednesday afternoon, according to the Federal Roads Office (Astra). This will affect the north-south axes, the A2 before the Gotthard tunnel and the A13 on the San Bernardino route.

At the same time, the Gotthard pass road will also remain closed over Easter due to the winter closure, Astra confirmed. The government has yet to respond to a parliamentary motion calling for the pass road to be open all year round.

+ Easter traffic: how the Swiss deal with traffic jams

Do not leave the motorways

In order to prevent detour traffic, which is a burden for the villages along the national roads, the Federal Roads Office is calling on travellers to stay on the motorway even during traffic jams.

Among other things, seven new “dosage points” opened at the end of January at the entrances and exits of the A2 motorway in canton Nidwalden are intended to help with this. They react in a coordinated manner to the increase and decrease in traffic. If a traffic jam forms at an entrance or exit, the system switches a traffic light to red. The vehicles are then held back. According to Astra, this is intended to prevent traffic jams from being avoided or to make them less attractive.

Canton Uri is also taking various measures to deal with the expected avalanche of traffic and reduce the amount of traffic using the cantonal road: for example, the entrances to Göschenen and Wassen will be closed when the traffic jam reaches three kilometres in length. If traffic builds up to eight kilometres, the speed on the motorway between Altdorf and Amsteg will be reduced to 80km/h.

This is intended to slow down traffic and reduce the risk of accidents. Depending on the situation, there will also be a dosage point at the exits in Erstfeld and Amsteg, the canton announced. The measures have been in place since April 4 and will continue until the Gotthard Pass road opens in mid-May.

+ Record-breaking traffic jams on Swiss roads

Railways offer additional connections

Meanwhile, travellers must also expect longer waiting times in both directions for car transport between Brig in canton Valais and Iselle in Italy at Easter. Trains will only run every two hours. This is due to ongoing Swiss Federal Railways renovation work in the Simplon Tunnel. When travelling southbound, there may also be waiting times at the Furka car loading stations in Realp, at Lötschberg in Kandersteg and at Vereina in Klosters-Selfranga.

Due to the high volume of travellers heading south, the Swiss Federal Railways is offering 20 extra trains on the Gotthard axis between German-speaking Switzerland and Ticino between Thursday and Easter Monday. According to the railway company, a total of around 64,000 additional seats will be offered. Additional carriages will also be attached to trains.

This also applies to Eurocity trains travelling as far as Italy, the Swiss Federal Railways announced. Two additional connections from Lugano to Milan will also be offered on Good Friday. However, high frequencies on individual trains cannot be ruled out in individual cases or in the event of a disruption to rail traffic, it added. The railway recommends planning one’s journey well in advance.

Astra expects the wave of return journeys on the south-north axis to begin later on Easter Sunday. However, the greatest disruptions to road traffic are expected on Easter Monday, the traffic information service Viasuisse said. The longest traffic jams are expected between 2pm and 9pm in front of the south portal in Airolo. And there may still be short waiting times on Tuesday.

Traffic jams every year

The Easter traffic jam on the Gotthard has been a recurring event for years. The record for the length of traffic jams since the Gotthard tunnel was opened in 1980 was set in 1998, when the onset of winter at Easter led to a traffic jam 25 kilometres long. In second place is Good Friday in 2022 with a traffic jam length of 22 kilometres.

In 2024, the traffic information service Viasuisse recorded a decrease in traffic volumes on the Gotthard over Easter: the peak of outbound traffic was on Good Friday with “only” 11 kilometres of congestion. At the same time the previous year, there were 19 kilometres of congestion. One possible reason for the drop in traffic volume last year may have been the bad weather in the south.

Translated from German by DeepL/ts

How we work

We select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate them into English. An editor then briefly reviews the translation for clarity and accuracy before publication. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. The news stories we select have been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team from news agencies such as Bloomberg or Keystone.

Did you find this explanation helpful? Please fill out this short survey to help us understand your needs: https://survey.survicate.com/d0df481d0b13412d/?p=anonymousExternal link