Switzerland has a very high density of railway network, with an average of 122 km of track for every 1000 km2 (average of 46 km in Europe). In 2008, each Swiss citizen ran on average 2,422 km by rail, which makes them the highest rail users.
Nearly all of the Swiss standard gauge railways are part of the nationwide
Trains cannot climb steep gradients, so it is necessary to build lot of track in order to gain height gradually. Transversals through the Alps were made possible with the use of hidden circular tunnels, which are called Spiral. In the case of extremely mountainous terrain, railway engineers opted for the more economical narrow gauge construction.
The many railway viaducts of the Rhaetian railways in the canton of Graubünden, built for the most part in the early 20th century, have become a tourist attraction as well as a necessary transport system, drawing rail enthusiasts from all over the world.
Some railways were built only for tourist purposes as the Gornergrat or the Jungfraujoch, Europe’s highest station in the Bernese Oberland, at an altitude of 3,454 metres (11,330 ft.).
Switzerland has a network of two-lane national roads. These roads usually lack a median or central reservation. Some stretches are controlled-access, in that all traffic must enter and exit through ramps and must cross using grade separations.
Two of the important motorways are the A1, running from St. Margrethen in northeastern Switzerland’s canton of St. Gallen through to Geneva in southwestern Switzerland, and the A2, running from Basel in northwestern Switzerland to Chiasso in southern Switzerland’s canton of Ticino, using the Gotthard Road Tunnel.
Autobahn (plural: Autobahnen) is the German name; in French-speaking Switzerland they are known as autoroutes (singular: autoroute), and in Italian-speaking Switzerland they are known as autostrade. Swiss motorways have general speed limits of 120 km/h (75 mph).
Geneva Cointrin International Airport
Zurich Airport(IATA: ZRH, ICAO: LSZH) also called Kloten Airport, located in Kloten, canton of Zurich, Switzerland and managed by Unique Airport is Switzerland’s largest
international flight gateway and hub to Swiss International Air Lines and Lufthansa. The second largest, Geneva Cointrin International Airport, handled 10.8 million passengers and the third largest, EuroAirport Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg, 4.3 million passengers, both airports being shared with France.
In 2003, Zurich International completed an expansion project in which it built a car park, a midfield terminal, and an automated underground train to move passengers between the existing terminal complex and the new terminal.
Zurich International lost traffic when Swissair shut down its operations. When Lufthansa took over its successor Swiss International Air Lines (SWISS), traffic grew again.
Zurich airport railway station (Zürich Flughafen) is underneath the terminal. There are trains to many parts of Switzerland; frequent S-Bahn services, plus direct Inter-regio and intercity services to Winterthur, Bern, Basel and Lucerne(Luzern). By changing trains at Zürich Hauptbahnhof most other places in Switzerland can be reached in a few hours.
Zurich Airport handled 19.2 million passengers in 2006.
