Cars are everywhere! Or are they? A tiny Gaulic Helvetic village has no cars! 

Like in many other aspects, Switzerland is a bit different: In the town of Zermatt, in the southwest of Switzerland and deep in the Alp mountains, there are no combustion-engine cars on the street. The local council decided decades ago that they would not allow cars on the streets. The decision was made to keep everything quiet and smooth, preventing the obvious air-pollution that combustion engines would undoubtedly have brought.

Zermatt and the Matterhorn

Zermatt is a small, mostly touristic town quite far down south in Switzerland in the Canton of Wallis. It has less than 6,000 inhabitants and is most famous for being close to the Matterhorn, one of the most well-known mountains in the Alps.

The fact that there are no combustion-engine cars provides a great opportunity not only for electric vehicles, but also for other modes of transportation. The long street in Zermatt, the Bahnhofstrasse, does not allow any cars after noon each day, not even electric ones. So no driving around with your Tesla unfortunately during most of the day. 

So if you can’t take a bike or don’t want to, there is only one option left: a horse! For horses, there are also no restrictions on the streets in Zermatt. The Swiss logistics company Planzer was in fact looking for ways to deliver parcels not only before noon but also in the afternoon. After a while of illegally delivering parcels with electric vehicles in the afternoon, one of the city council members jokingly suggested to go back to using horse-carriages for delivery.

To their surprise, the logistics company did some research and found out that it was actually feasible. So in 2019, Planzer started delivering parcels in the afternoon by horse carriage.

The marketing campaign: horse power logistics

Having clever marketing people onboard, the Zurich-based company decided to not only solve the delivery problem, but to also promote the originality of their service in Zermatt with a small web series.

They have created a series called “Der Benny” with its eponymous horse “Benny”, one of the delivery horses in Zermatt. Benny is a draft horse from Poland and found his way to Zermatt where he arrived in 2019 according to the story. And even if you might never send a parcel to Zermatt, you can still experience Benny in action. 

If you come to Zermatt during the weekend you might catch a horse taxi with Benny providing the horsepower.

In the mean time, you can watch some of the episodes of the mini series before deciding that you must come and see Benny in real-life in Zermatt.