It’s traffic jam season on the Swiss motorways. The Federal Council now has to work out a transit fee for foreign tourists.
May 12, 2026, 05:24May 12, 2026, 05:42
They belong to spring like “Silent Night” is to Christmas: the traffic jam reports from the Gotthard. As soon as the days get longer again, they start coming back regularly. The metal snake grows to 2, 5, 8, 12, 15 kilometers. “The Wassen and Göschenen entrances are closed,” it sounds on the radio.
At Easter, traffic on the north-south axis was backed up again for several kilometers. Here at Erstfeld.Image: keystone
Negative highlights are Easter, Ascension and Pentecost. On Good Friday, the southbound traffic jam was 21 kilometers long. This corresponds to a half marathon: ambitious amateur athletes can easily do it in under 2 hours. It took over 3.5 hours on the Gotthard. Traffic jams of over 10 kilometers are expected again for the next two holiday weekends.
“It has increased massively in the last few years,” complains Simon Stadler, centrist National Councilor and traffic jam-stricken Uri resident.
“In addition to the peaks on the classic traffic jam days, we now also have higher traffic volumes on many other days.”
As soon as traffic builds up, it has a direct impact on the Uri villages. Drivers leave the motorway, partly guided by navigation devices, hoping to save time. This leads to congested cantonal roads and for the people of Uri, even traveling from village to village becomes torture.
Fights against traffic jams: Simon Stadler.Image: keystone
Dynamic prices – as a deterrent
Stadler no longer wants to simply accept this. He is convinced that this avalanche of metal is not a force of nature, but can be controlled. He is one of the driving forces for a transit flat rate for journeys through Switzerland. Both the National Council and the Council of States have clearly agreed to a corresponding demand. Now the Federal Council must introduce such a fee. Against his will: It is too complicated and there are many administrative hurdles.
For Stadler, the focus is on a “steering effect”. That’s official German for: deterrence. The prices will be dynamic.
“I can also imagine that on certain days there will be no fees at all.”
At peak times, however, it should be “a substantial amount,” explains Stadler. “That could easily be 80 or 100 francs,” said the National Council.
Only foreign drivers are affected. Unless you have a “significant stay” in Switzerland. And the fee applies to every route that leads across Switzerland. So regardless of whether it is a pass road, San Bernardino or Gotthard. Exactly how the system will work is also still unclear. Recording by camera at the borders is conceivable. The transit fee is due if, for example, two border points are passed within 24 hours.
The vignette price should not be increased
This in addition to the vignette. It still costs 40 francs. And nothing should change about that: “I think it’s too cheap, but the people recently rejected an increase,” says Stadler. And basically:
“It’s not about the state earning more money in the end, but about relieving the mountain areas of the burden of through traffic.”
Ideally, the system would offer incentives to either drive through Switzerland at other times, to travel through Switzerland on public transport or to travel past Switzerland. Stadler imagines that the tariffs will be communicated transparently in advance and the differences will also be shown. “Many travelers from the Netherlands or Germany in particular are very price-sensitive,” says Stadler. That’s why he is confident that there is actually a shift.
There is already resistance from abroad: governments and parliamentarians from neighboring countries complain that it is unfair. Your citizens would be discriminated against by such a tax. “Today the mountain population is disadvantaged because they can no longer move freely due to the high volume of traffic,” says Stadler. In other countries there is already a route toll – sometimes with more attractive tariffs for residents.
“I go to Ticino by train”
“It’s also about distributing traffic better,” says Stadler. Switzerland currently bears a large part of the burden of north-south holiday traffic. “The figures from the Federal Roads Office show that around 80 percent of all cars come from abroad at Easter – and many of them do not go to Ticino,” says Stadler. The Federal Office is scheduled to publish exact figures for the first time this summer.
Stadler himself can’t remember the last time he drove through the Gotthard Tunnel by car: “If I want to go to Ticino, then of course I’ll take the train. Everything else simply doesn’t make sense.” And in the end he wouldn’t be part of the solution, but part of the problem. (aargauerzeitung.ch)