Autobahns of Switzerland

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The autobahn sign

The Autobahns are the national freeway system in Switzerland. Amongst two of the most important Autobahns are the A1, running from St. Margrethen in northeastern Switzerland's canton of St. Gallen through to Geneva in southwestern Switzerland, and the A2, running from Basel in northwestern Switzerland to Chiasso in southern Switzerland's canton of Ticino, on the border with Italy.

Swiss autobahns have general speed limits of 120 km/h (75 mph).

1 Construction
2 History
3 Current density
4 Toll requirements
5 List of Autobahns
6 External links

[edit] Construction

In Switzerland, it is impractical to navigate using the autobahn numbers; instead it is useful to steer towards the biggest city that lies in the intended target region; this is because traffic signs display the city names much more prominently than in Germany.^{[citation needed]} Another specialty is that in Switzerland the exit gateways appear much more often than in other countries.

[edit] History

A short stretch of autobahn around the Lucerne area in 1955 created Switzerland's first autobahn. For Expo 1964, an autobahn was built between Lausanne and Geneva. The Bern-Lenzburg route was inaugurated in 1967.

[edit] Current density

Map of the Swiss autobahn network

The Swiss autobahn network has a total length of 1,638 km (as of 2000) and has, by an area of 41,290 km², also the one of the highest motorway densities in the world. The Swiss autobahn network has not yet been completed; priority has been given to the most important routes, especially the north-south and the west-east axis. The gaps in the autobahn network are apparent in the graphic.

Swiss autobahns very often have an emergency lane except in tunnels. Some newly built autobahn sections, like the lone section crossing the Jura region in the north-western part of Switzerland, only have emergency bays.

[edit] Toll requirements

The Swiss autobahn system requires the purchase of a vignette (toll sticker) in order to use their respective roadways, for both passenger cars and trucks. The Cantons abandoned the right to raise road and bridge tolls to the Confederation and the only way of funding the road system is through the vignette and the motor tax for every registered vehicle. Tolls for the use of particular roads, tunnels or bridges can't be raised according to the Swiss constitution and so even the use of cost-intensive pieces of infrastructure such as the Gotthard Road Tunnel is financed by the entire system.

The Swiss vignette is offered only as an annual toll sticker. Since 2005 trucks have to have a Go-Box, a little white box which counts the length of the used autobahn with electrical control points. In Austria the Go-Box is queried by overhead DSRC microwave radio transceivers at each exit. As only trucks need to carry a Go-Box, overhead 3-D infrared laser scanners are used to detect and photograph trucks without Go-Box.