Switzerland planned a subway for freight, then hit a financing barrier

A freight route designed for the gaps between trucks

Cargo Sous Terrain, or CST, is planned as a separate layer of Switzerland’s delivery network: freight would travel between underground logistics hubs, then return to the surface for its final trip by truck. The idea is not to replace every delivery vehicle. It is to move goods between distribution points without sending each long-distance load across ordinary roads.

That distinction matters in a compact, road-busy country. A truck carrying freight between regional hubs occupies road space for the whole journey, even though the goods may ultimately need a van or truck for delivery in town. CST’s proposed tunnels would handle the middle leg; the existing road network would still serve addresses that a fixed underground route cannot reach.

How the handoff is meant to work

At a hub, goods would be loaded onto standardized carriers and transferred to self-driving electric vehicles inside the tunnel. Those vehicles would travel to another hub, where the freight could be sorted and handed off for local distribution. In effect, the system combines a dedicated freight corridor with automated terminals: the tunnel moves cargo between hubs, while the hubs connect it to warehouses and roads.

The design shifts work as well as traffic. A network of this kind needs carefully coordinated loading, sorting, and transfers; a tunnel alone cannot make a parcel arrive at the right neighborhood. Its usefulness would depend on enough businesses routing suitable freight through the hubs, and on the underground link fitting smoothly into their existing delivery schedules.

The payoff—and the constraint

If adopted at scale, the system could take some long-distance freight movements off surface roads. But it would not make local truck traffic disappear: the last leg still has to reach shops, businesses, and homes. The striking change would be less visible than a new road or railway. Some cargo would cross the country beneath the street, while trucks upstairs handled the destinations the tunnel network could not.