The Gotthard road tunnel
The Gotthard road tunnel links Göschenen in the Canton of Uri with Airolo in Ticino and is the bottleneck of the A2 north–south route. To understand why queues build up there so regularly, you only need to know one thing: it is a single tube carrying traffic in both directions.
Key facts
The tunnel is about 16.9 kilometres long, and the speed limit is 80 km/h. With clear traffic, that works out at about 13 minutes of driving inside the tunnel. It has been open since 1980. You need the Swiss motorway vignette to drive through it.
According to the Swiss Federal Roads Office (FEDRO), it is the longest road tunnel in the Alps. Just under 3 million vehicles passed through it in 1981; in 2024 the figure was almost 7.1 million.
Why traffic is metered
Because both directions share the same tube, its capacity cannot simply be pushed to the limit: a tailback inside the tunnel would be a safety problem, not just an inconvenience. That is why traffic is metered in front of the portals: vehicles are let in a batch at a time, and the queue deliberately forms outside on the motorway rather than inside.
This is also why Stauportal.ch reports the queue length not in the tunnel but on the approach roads: to the north between Erstfeld, Amsteg and Göschenen, to the south between Faido, Quinto and Airolo. These are the sections where metering shows up as a queue. Each side has its own overview: the Gotthard tunnel southbound page for the queue at the north portal and the Gotthard tunnel northbound page for the queue at the south portal.
Safety since the 2001 fire
On 24 October 2001 at 9.39 am, just under a kilometre after the entrance at Airolo, a lorry veered into the oncoming lane and clipped an oncoming lorry. A tank burst, leaking diesel caught fire, and within moments both vehicles and their loads were in flames. Eleven people died. The tunnel stayed closed for repairs until 21 December 2001.
Since then, the tunnel has been upgraded with, among other things, new ventilation, brighter lighting, escape-route signs every 25 metres showing the distance to the nearest escape route, traffic lights for both lanes and new emergency telephone and radio systems.
The change you notice most as a driver is the drip-feed system. After the tunnel reopened, lorries at first ran only alternately from the north or from the south, switching every two hours. Since September 2002 they have been back in two-way traffic, but each lorry is sent into the tunnel individually: depending on car traffic, from 60 up to a maximum of about 150 per direction per hour.
In total, no more than 1,000 passenger car units per direction per hour are allowed through, with a lorry counting as three. If more vehicles arrive, the system switches to metering, and lorries keep at least 150 metres apart in the tunnel. That is why FEDRO calls the wait at the traffic lights “safety time”.
Two further elements were added later: in 2009 the Ripshausen heavy vehicle centre in the Canton of Uri, where lorries are checked and managed for the Gotthard route, and in 2016 two thermal scanning portals on the approach roads. They detect overheated vehicle parts, especially on lorries, and stop vehicles at risk of catching fire before they reach the tunnel. According to FEDRO, the number of accidents in the tunnel has fallen markedly: there were 34 in 2001, and since 2007 there have been between 4 and 14 a year.
Two-way traffic will remain until both tubes are in service. According to FEDRO’s timetable, the second tube is due to open in 2030, after which the existing tube will be refurbished until 2033. Only then will each direction have its own tube, with one lane and a hard shoulder. What this means for queues is covered on our page about the second Gotthard tube.
When queues typically build up
The peaks are seasonal and very regular: summer weekends in July and August, public holidays and the start of the school holidays. The direction follows the holiday traffic: south when holidays begin, north when they end. In summer and autumn 2026, the reports recorded by Stauportal.ch show the longest average waits southbound on Saturdays, Mondays and Fridays, and northbound on Fridays, Sundays and Saturdays. On top of that come the Easter and Whitsun weekends, and individual days with accidents or closures that cannot be predicted.
By contrast, the night closures for maintenance, which FEDRO schedules several times a year, can be planned for. Upcoming closures are listed on our Gotthard closures page; the Gotthard traffic forecast shows the days on which queues typically build up in each direction.
What “Jam” and “Slow” mean here
Stauportal.ch distinguishes three states. “Clear” means that no hold-up has been reported for the section. “Slow” means slow-moving traffic with a reported length of less than 3 kilometres. From 3 kilometres, the status is shown as “Jam”. The figures come from FEDRO’s open traffic data feed.
Where to check the current situation
The live traffic situation shows the queue length and delay in each direction. If the wait is not worth it, the alternative routes are covered on our Avoiding the Gotthard page.
Gotthard road tunnel: frequently asked questions
How long is the Gotthard road tunnel?
About 16.9 kilometres, from Göschenen in the Canton of Uri to Airolo in Ticino. According to the Swiss Federal Roads Office (FEDRO), it is the longest road tunnel in the Alps. The speed limit is 80 km/h, so with clear traffic the drive through takes about 13 minutes. The tunnel has been open since 1980.
Do I need a vignette for the Gotthard tunnel?
Yes. The Gotthard road tunnel is on the A2 motorway, so you need the Swiss motorway vignette to drive through it.
What happened in the Gotthard tunnel fire in 2001?
On 24 October 2001, just under a kilometre after the Airolo entrance, a lorry veered into the oncoming lane and clipped an oncoming lorry. Leaking diesel caught fire and eleven people died. The tunnel stayed closed for repairs until 21 December 2001. After it reopened, lorries at first ran only alternately, switching direction every two hours; since September 2002 they have been let in one at a time, and since 2016 two thermal scanning portals have stopped vehicles at risk of catching fire before they reach the tunnel.
Why is there so often a queue at the Gotthard tunnel?
The tunnel has a single tube carrying traffic in both directions. At most 1,000 passenger car units per direction per hour are allowed through, with a lorry counting as three. When more vehicles arrive, traffic is metered in front of the portals, so the queue forms outside on the motorway rather than in the tunnel. The peaks are summer weekends in July and August, public holidays and the start of the school holidays.
Information provided without guarantee. Official information from FEDRO and the cantonal police always takes precedence.