Skip to main content

Switzerland to improve traffic flow by 2020

The Swiss federal office for roads, Astra, has announced plans to implement a series of measures by 2020 to ease traffic flow on roads and to prevent congestion Plans include limited use of the emergency lanes for some traffic in peak hours, bans on overtaking for trucks, and a temporary reduction to the maximum speed on heavily congested roads, as well as a targeted management at traffic lights. The measures will be implemented according to the degree of congestion on the national roads. There will also
August 21, 2013 Read time: 1 min
The Swiss federal office for roads, Astra, has announced plans to implement a series of measures by 2020 to ease traffic flow on roads and to prevent congestion

Plans include limited use of the emergency lanes for some traffic in peak hours, bans on overtaking for trucks, and a temporary reduction to the maximum speed on heavily congested roads, as well as a targeted management at traffic lights. The measures will be implemented according to the degree of congestion on the national roads. There will also be an improved disclosure of traffic news via the radio and information boards.

Astra has not disclosed the costs of the proposed measures, but has revealed that development on the emergency lane to accommodate for more traffic amounts to US$5.41 million per kilometre.

Related Content

  • No city is a traffic island
    April 2, 2024
    Beate Kubitz reflects on the rising tide of suburban drivers - and how cities across Europe are dealing with them as worries over air quality multiply
  • New Hampshire plans for tomorrow’s communication
    August 21, 2017
    Someone once likened predicting the future to ‘nailing a jelly to the wall’. With ITS, C-ITS and V2X technology progressing at such a pace, predicting the future is more akin to trying to nail three jellies to the wall – but only having one nail. And yet with roadways having a lifetime measured in decades, that is exactly what highway engineers and traffic planners are expected to do. Fortunately, New Hampshire DoT (NHDoT) believes its technological advances may be able to provide a solution. The Central Ne
  • ITS World Congress debates perceptions of enforcement
    December 4, 2012
    The technical programme of this year’s ITS World Congress in Vienna includes a special session on the image of enforcement. ITS International examines the scale of the problem and what can be done about it. Debate on the merits and difficulties of enforcing speed limits appears centred on a conflict of principles. Put very simply, local communities, people living close to busy or hazardous roads, want to see traffic speeds calmed. Drivers on those roads, on the whole, want their principle of freedom to be m
  • Laser-based counting and classification
    February 1, 2012
    Swiss company ECTN has developed a Traffic Information Collector (TIC) system based on laser scanners. 3D vehicle data is generated by positioning the lasers over each lane, to automatically classify vehicles. Up to 28 different vehicle classes are categorised into standard classification tables, such as TLS5+1, TLS8+1, Swiss 10.