But why tunnels? The article didn't justify it at all. Tunnels are extremely expensive, and usually avoided in all but the most extreme circumstances. Are we at the point now where its easier to just tunnel than buy and negotiate rights of way?
I think this initiative is brilliant and hope we can try out a similar approach in Norway. We have extensive experience in making tunnels and in automation and should be able to build something like this.
To my mind, it’s hyperloop with all the nonsensical parts stripped out.
Indeed, and if there's one thing the Swiss are good at, it's taking very ample time to carefully plan and consider costs and risks.
Are they though?
When you consider the price of infrastructure, you have to take into account the period over which the investment will be used, the speed of depreciation and the benefits over time.
In an American way of looking at things, where everything has to give a return on investment quickly, these might not make sense, but in a Swiss perspective, where folks typically think two generations down the road, the immediate cost may be high, but amortized over 60 or 80 years, it is peanuts.
Also, this is meant for transport to/from the inner city, so nobody to negotiate rights of way with - unless you mean demolishing buildings.
So the best case is $210 million / mile for the CA HSR and the Swiss already built a tunnel for $350 million / mile.
It looks like they can dodge the topography by building at the cost somewhere between close-to-best-case American rail and worst-case American rail.
They need enclosure around the goods to be transported, and right of way. You can do that by buying many expensive vehicles and negotiating right of way. Negotiating right of way in an densely built-up area is both difficult and expensive.
Building tunnels is not extremely expensive, BTW, if you can avoid most of the factors that drive costs up. They do.
https://www.cst.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/2015_10_vek_Ka...
This is supposed to be a low speed service - 30km/h - so they could meander around mountains to a large extent. Am I misreading that this is supposed to be entirely underground?
There's plenty of space underground and sure it's a higher one-time cost, but the conserving the surface for people is probably worthwhile.
I wonder about induced demand. Presumably total freight volumes will not change drastically in response to the availability of this new system, in which case one could expect road traffic reductions to be stable.
The quieter roads may well induce more personal transportation, but then with Switzerland’s already very good passenger rail connections, maybe not.
Seems like a win all round.