Skip to main content

Gotthard Base Tunnel opens in Switzerland

After 17 years of construction, the 57 kilometre-long Gotthard Base Tunnel in Switzerland, said to be the longest train tunnel in the world opens today, 1 June. At a depth inside the Gotthard massif of more than 2,000 metres, trains will travel at up to a maximum 250 kilometres per hour. The opening is attracting attention from high profile figures outside of Switzerland, including Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel, French president François Hollande and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who will al
June 1, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
After 17 years of construction, the 57 kilometre-long Gotthard Base Tunnel in Switzerland, said to be the longest train tunnel in the world opens today, 1 June. At a depth inside the Gotthard massif of more than 2,000 metres, trains will travel at up to a maximum 250 kilometres per hour.

The opening is attracting attention from high profile figures outside of Switzerland, including Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel, French president François Hollande and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who will all attend the celebrations to inaugurate tunnel.

The tunnel, which cost US$12 billion (€11 billion) to complete, is at the heart of the New Trans-Alpine Railway Link project, geared towards improving the north-south rail link through the Alps.

Base tunnels enable flatter and shorter rail routes so trains can travel at higher speeds and pull more weight. The link is only 550 metres above sea level at its highest point - much lower than existing routes through the Alps, says swissinfo.ch

189 Siemens has supplied the tunnel control and fire protection systems for the tunnel; the sophisticated safety system has over 200,000 sensors, while the control system controls and automatically monitors all installations, including train movements, train door status, tunnel lighting and ventilation. The tunnel is fitted with sensors, control electronics and surveillance equipment, including video cameras.

The tunnel tubes are connected every 300 metres by crosscuts that allow train passengers to escape to the other tube in case of a fire. Each tube has two emergency-stop stations 600 meters in length which allows the evacuation of up to 1,000 passengers.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Machine vision’s image of road management’s future
    June 11, 2015
    Q-Free’s Marco Sinnema looks at how the commoditisation of high-quality vision-based solutions is widening their application. Machine vision technology’s entry into the ITS/traffic management sector has followed a classic top-down path. This is unsurprising given the extremely demanding performance criteria which are the standard in its market of origin, manufacturing processing. Very high image qualities combined with frame rates often in the hundreds per second range resulted in vision systems with capabi
  • Russia looks to ITS to curb congestion and reduce accidents
    May 7, 2015
    Major ITS installations are planned as the Russian capital Moscow grapples with extensive traffic problems. At the end of 2014, Russia’s first complex intelligent transport system (ITS) started easing traffic problems in and around the capital Moscow, following the implementation of the plans by the federal government and the city’s authorities.
  • Countdown to 2015 ITS America Annual Meeting & Expo
    May 1, 2015
    There’s less than a month to go before the 2015 ITS America Annual Meeting & Expo gets under way in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania gets underway in what will be a unique and visionary event. The theme is Bridges To Innovation so for the more than 2,000 of the nation’s top transportation and technology business leaders and investors, policymakers, public agency representatives, and researchers, this will be one of the most forward looking Annual Meetings.
  • Mauritius sets out to modernise public transport 
    March 19, 2020
    The National Land Transport Authority (NLTA) in Mauritius is using LIT Transit's mobility platform to provide integrated mobility management and passenger information capabilities on public transport.