By rosebell
Following that the Federal Council approved a first draft of the Sectoral Plan for Underground Transport, further development of Switzerland’s Cargo sous terrain (CST) has been made possible.
According to the Federal Act on Underground Freight Transport (UGüTG), the Federal Council’s decision was made which it designates areas for the construction of facilities.
Enabling further planning and co-ordination of the project, the Federal Council has defined interim results for the tunnel section planned by CST between Härkingen and Zurich as a first step.
CST said in a statement: “With its decision, the Federal Council specifies the framework conditions for the CST project and provides binding initial results for spatial co-ordination for the authorities. This represents an important milestone for the implementation of the CST logistics solution, as the sectoral planning specifications create greater planning certainty.”
During the consultation with cantons and municipalities in last year it was approved that that further clarifications were required before the final locations for the logistics centres, landfills, and tunnel routing could be determined. Groundwater protection measures must also be defined.
While the current duty of CST is to developing solutions for the outstanding issues raised in the consultation, in the next stage of the sectoral plan, which runs until 2027, stakeholders’ interests will be examined further. The final site selection will take place in this next sectoral plan stage.
Applying for planning approval from the Federal Office of Transport can be done by CST after the site selection has been made. In order to demonstrating the project’s feasibility, in addition to the sectoral plan process, the federal government required CST to have its own project assumptions independently verified. This has been completed and submitted to the Federal Office of Transport as a basis for further procedural steps.
The planned freight network system will stretch from Geneva to St Gallen, providing a tunnel network for automated, driverless electric freight vehicles. The first 70km section, connecting the Härkingen-Niederbipp hub with Zurich Airport, is scheduled to open in 2031 and CST plans to create a 500km nationwide network by 2045.
CST commenced geotech work in 2023 and consulation was launched last year.
