Gotthard Tunnel
The adjacent ramps include several turn tunnels (see Table of turn tunnels). While a triumph of its era and an example of pioneering engineering, the Gotthard Tunnel was considered to be relatively slow to traverse by twentieth century standards, leading to talk of building a superior successor tunnel as early as the 1940s. During 1980, the neighbouring Gotthard Road Tunnel was opened; by 2016, it was reportedly being used to convey around one million freight lorries each year. A second railway tunnel, the Gotthard Base Tunnel, was opened on 1 June 2016 after 17 years of construction; in comparison, it is considerably longer (57.1km; namely the world's longest railway tunnel) and at a about 500m lower elevation than the first Gotthard Tunnel, enabling trains to traverse the Central Alps on a flat and straight route and therefore more efficiently, at higher speeds, with much less energy consumption, and longer freight trains.