The fight against climate change and the congestion that trucks create on roads around the world are driving projects to take cargo transportation underground, and Switzerland is the most advanced country in them, with a project that could be implemented around 2045 with electric and autonomous vehicles.
A public limited company, Cargo Sous Terrain (CST), is responsible for this idea that arose between Swiss investors and engineers in 2010, to which the Swiss Parliament gave the green light in August 2022 and which, according to those responsible, could begin work in brief.
“We are looking for funds for construction, which will begin around 2026 and in its first phase could cost about 3.4 billion francs (3.5 billion euros),” company spokesperson Patrick Aellig explained to EFE.
This first phase would consist of a first tunnel between Zurich, the largest city in the country, and Harkingen, a town about 70 kilometers to the west, small but strategic as it is located at the crossroads of the current major national transport routes.
Later it would be extended, always in depth, to other large cities such as Bern, Geneva, Basel or Lucerne, forming a network of at least 500 kilometers located about 40 meters below the surface, and which would involve a total investment of between 30,000 and 35,000 million Swiss francs (31,000-36,000 million euros).
Compared to another similar underground project, the famous Hyperloop championed for now only on a theoretical level by the magnate Elon Musk, the speed of this transport would not be ultrasonic, but about 30 kilometers per hour, enough, according to Aellig, for a country small in size like Switzerland.
“It is not so vital that goods arrive from a place like Zurich to another like Basel in record time, what is important is that there is a stable flow of products, safe and not interrupted by traffic jams. High speed is not necessary, and of course Yes, it would be cheaper,” explains the CST spokesperson.
Striking about this project is the fact that it wants to be totally financed by private initiative: although the national Parliament approved it, it also stipulated that the federal government would not be financially involved in the project, so the great challenge is to find financing from other sources. ways.
“We prefer it this way, because we want to design a system according to the needs of logistics and economics. We did not want a ‘political’ solution where we could be forced, for example, to build a stop here or there,” says Aellig.
The long-term profitability of the project would depend on charging transportation firms for the use of underground vehicles, a type of wagon less than three meters high and wide, with prices that can compete with those of their more conventional competitors in the market. land and rail traffic.
On a technical level, the spokesperson emphasizes that it should not be difficult to build this network in a country like mountainous Switzerland, “already accustomed to tunnels”, although the project awaits technological improvements in electric and autonomous transport.
“The main challenge is in the loading system, an elevator that can carry many products from top to bottom at the same time in a relatively short time,” he explains.
Another similar project, in London, imagines underground transportation of small cargo through a network of magnetic levitation trains, although Switzerland’s plan is the only one for now at a national level and with truly advanced preparations.
In January of this year, exploratory drilling and geological measurements began by CST, a company that assures that it has broad support from environmental sectors, for an idea that can considerably reduce greenhouse gas emissions but also traffic accidents.
However, the company spokesperson acknowledged, the construction of the network has to take precautions, for example, not to interfere with groundwater.
In Switzerland, a country without seas and at the crossroads of numerous economic powers of the European Union, two thirds of goods are transported by trucks, the rest by train, and forecasts suggest that at the current rate the traffic density Road freight will increase by more than 30% by 2040.
“We are aware of the importance of protecting the environment, people do not want unlimited roads to be built; it is a very innovative country, and there is the necessary money for a project of this scale,” summarizes Aellig, who points out that the project It is also of interest in countries such as the United Kingdom, Germany or China.
