North-bound motorists faced long delays at Switzerland’s Gotthard road tunnel on Sunday afternoon when congestion at the Airolo (Ticino) portal stretched to 5.47 km, translating into a wait time of around 53 minutes. While the historic Gotthard Pass and the tunnel itself remained fully open, cantonal police closed the Airolo motorway on-ramp to prevent spill-back, compounding the backlog. In contrast, traffic flowing south from the German-speaking side encountered no bottlenecks. The asymmetrical grid-lock again highlights a perennial dilemma for one of Europe’s busiest freight and holiday corridors: weekend return flows from Italy collide with limited holding space at the southern portal. Authorities temporarily activated the “CUPRA” hard-shoulder bypass lane for drivers exiting at Airolo, but travel-time data show the measure merely stabilised, rather than reduced, the queue length. For logistics operators, the stop-and-go traffic threatens schedule integrity on just-in-time deliveries to distribution centres north of the Alps. Companies are therefore advised to dispatch north-bound consignments either late at night or to reroute via the San Bernardino or Lötschberg/Simplon corridors when Sunday afternoon peaks are forecast. Looking ahead, Canton Uri plans to deploy dynamic metering at the northern Göschenen portal whenever queues exceed 3 km, but that tool was not required this weekend. The Federal Roads Office (FEDRO) is also piloting AI-based forecasting to issue congestion alerts up to six hours in advance—technology that could let fleet managers reschedule before trucks even leave Milan’s hinterland.
Source: Gotthard-Traffic.ch
