13 ms·

The integrated timetable of Switzerland

229 points by jokteur 4y ago

immmmmm 4y ago
Swiss here. Amazing system, using it everyday. Brutally expensive tickets tho.
- baq 4y ago
  expensive in absolute or relative terms? is it expensive e.g. compared to a car?
  - jokteur 4y ago
    I would say, if you take single tickets (even with the half-fare card), the tickets are quite more expensive than the trip with a normal car (counting costs of car, of gas, insurrance, ...). However, if you have a monthly fare because you go somewhere regularly, it is still expensive, but much more managable. The monthly General Abo (unlimited travel for all public transports in Switzerland) is ~340$/month. A parking spot in a city could already be from 80$ to 200$ a month.
    - cybrox 4y ago
      I'd like to add that the fact that single tickets are [sometimes too] expensive in some cases is due to the approach of billing by geographic zones, which has its own up- and downsides. For example: If I want to go from somewhere around Lake Zurich to Zurich, I have to pay to "travel in every geographical zone" between me and Zurich. However, this also allows me to travel freely in these zones. In addition to that, if you pay for a return trip (which most people usually do), you automatically pay for travelling freely in these zones in any direction for a full 24 hours. So assuming a half-fare card, I pay CHF 3.20 to take the bus 500m and back, which is ridiculously expensive for that distance, however, I "only" pay CHF 12.90 for riding all forms of PT (train, bus, ship, etc.) between me and Zurich, including the whole city for a full day, which is relatively reasonable for Zurich standards.
    - grncdr 4y ago
      That is way cheaper than I would have guessed. A yearly subscription for public transport in Berlin alone costs at least twice that.
      - p1anecrazy 4y ago
        S/he wrote 340 a month, not a year
        herbst 4y ago
        City tickets in Switzerland also are around 300-500/year. (sure our cities are nowhere near Berlin in size) the 340/m option does allow you to use nearly any transport (boats, trains, buses, some cable cars) in the whole country including price reductions (up to 50%) for most non-included transport methods (like private mountain trains or tourist hot spot cable cars).
        a4a4a4a4 4y ago
        > City tickets in Switzerland also are around 300-500/year Zurich zone 110 (city center) is 782chf/year ($816) for the non-transferable one. Bern is 790chf/year. I'm not sure where you're getting "300-500/year". https://www.zvv.ch/zvv/de/abos-und-tickets/abos/netzpass.html https://www.zvv.ch/zvv/de/abos-und-tickets/abos/netzpass.htm... https://www.mylibero.ch/de/libero-abo/jahresabo https://www.mylibero.ch/de/libero-abo/jahresabo
        herbst 4y ago
        That's absolutely new to me. Last time I got a Libero it was like 380 or so for 2 zones. Thanks for the correction
    - runeks 4y ago
      > I would say, if you take single tickets (even with the half-fare card), the tickets are quite more expensive than the trip with a normal car (counting costs of car, of gas, insurrance, ...). Which numbers are you using for this calculation? I assume you have some price-per-kilometer traveled by car (all expenses included) and by train?
  - herbst 4y ago
    Swiss here, it always depends. Some rides are cheaper by car but take less time by train and you have WiFi and fresh coffee in trains so it's only partially travel time partially leisure or work time. Some routes are more expensive, but again way more comfortable than a car. The there are dozens of hacks to save. Early booking, last minute bookings, half fair (which is only $200 or so a year and makes you pay half for everything including boats and some mountain trains), $50 24h all inclusive tickets, ... IMO if you assume our median income to be 3 times that of Austria (or Germany, Italy for that matter). And our tickets on average cost only 1.5-2x as much while we actually have one of the best networks you can think of I would say it's not expensive at all. My all in leasing car is $500 + petrol. For 2 people getting 2 all inklusive Tickets would still be cheaper.
    - cybrox 4y ago
      Half fare card is CHF 185 for the first year or CHF 165 for every subsequent year (CHF 120 / CHF 100 if you're 16-26). For anyone planning to spend any amount of time in Switzerland and using PT, it is well worth considering. It does exactly what it says, you only pay half. So assuming you travel from Zurich to Bern (CHF 51 -> CHF 26, you safe CHF 25), it's worth it after only 8 trips.
      - seanmcdirmid 4y ago
        Everyone seems to have a half price card except tourists. I think this is designed to get subsidize tourists less, because otherwise Swiss rail and metro prices appear twice as much as other European countries.
        myrion 4y ago
        Tourists have access to tourist-only specials though, which make up for that, I think: https://www.sbb.ch/en/leisure-holidays/inspiration/international-guests/swiss-travel-pass.html https://www.sbb.ch/en/leisure-holidays/inspiration/internati...
        4y ago
- tragomaskhalos 4y ago
  That's not a bad trade-off to be fair. In the UK tickets (at least inter-city) are also brutally expensive but the system is, to put it kindly, often flakey.
  - midasuni 4y ago
    I had a delay repay for the first time in years a few weeks ago - someone threw themselves under a train at Milton Keynes just before my train was due to leave Euston. I don’t consider £25 each way Manchester-London to be brutally expensive to be honest - http://brfares.com/!faredetail?orig=MAN&dest=EUS&rte=371&tkt=SVR http://brfares.com/!faredetail?orig=MAN&dest=EUS&rte=371&tkt...
    - Zenst 4y ago
      Shows as £46.70, which still isn't bad, though off-peak is often less painful. If you have to use the train to commute to work, then things start raking up. I live 15 miles outside London and 17 years ago was paying best part of £2k a year just to get into central london and back, today it would be the best part of £3k a year to make that same journey. Using the same tracks, (probably trains) and stations all those years ago. Though more people than back then, which was already at levels upon peak work commutes that saw you playing sardines.
      - CaptainZapp 4y ago
        That almost gets you one year of travel in 2nd class throughout the entire Swiss train network (including public transport in cities).
        midasuni 4y ago
        Switzerland has a population of less than london. £3k would get you transport throughout london too - rail and bus.
      - iso1631 4y ago
        Nobody should be commuting from Manchester to London. That's £46.70 return, so £23.35 each way, arriving in London about 1030. Peak time london commuting is the most expensive part of the network to deliver, as it requires increased amount of capital that's mostly idle, yet peak time commuters get massive discounts compared with occasional use. Compare Reading to London. A season ticket works out to be about £22 return for 5 days a week, a normal peak time ticket is £52.10.
- CaptainZapp 4y ago
  Another Swiss here. Brutally expensive? Sure, when you look at full fare tickets. Since every Swiss, who uses public transport owns a half fare card those prices are (mostly) halfed, though. When it comes to commuter travel prices become outright reasonable. The best deal, if you use the train for a regular commute intercity is the Generalabonnement[0]. ca. $4000 (6500 for first class) for a year of unrestricted travel throughout the (almost) whole country on any train is actually a steal. There are also special saver tickets, restricted to a specific train and usually booked well in advance, which can be outright cheap. [0] https://www.sbb.ch/en/travelcards-and-tickets/railpasses/ga/ga-travelcard-prices.html https://www.sbb.ch/en/travelcards-and-tickets/railpasses/ga/...
  - tauchunfall 4y ago
    German here, who traveled a lot through Switzerland. I find it even more amazing that there are more people who have a Generalabonnement than a Bahncard 100 (the German equivalent which is a bit cheaper). [1] Commuting between Fribourg and Zurich was always great, even when there were only circa five minutes to change trains in Bern. It's so efficient, I always catched my train in Bern. [1] >2019: 500'000 Exemplare des GA sind seit dieser Woche im Umlauf. Dies entspricht im Vergleich zu vor 20 Jahren einer Verzwanzigfachung. >Anzahl der Besitzer einer BahnCard 100 bis 2021. Die BahnCard 100 der Deutschen Bahn wurde lange Zeit immer beliebter, im Jahr 2021 gab es rund 36.000 Besitzer.
    - phaer 4y ago
      > I find it even more amazing that there are more people who have a Generalabonnement than a Bahncard 100 (the German equivalent which is a bit cheaper). [1] To contextualize this a bit: Switzerland has about a tenth of the German population (~8.5M vs ~83M)
    - ls15 4y ago
      > I find it even more amazing that there are more people who have a Generalabonnement than a Bahncard 100 (the German equivalent which is a bit cheaper). GA costs about 50% of a typical monthly Swiss salary. BC100 costs about 100% of a typical monthly German salary.
mfsch 4y ago
What isn’t explained in the article is how this was made possible. While carefully adjusting departure times is certainly part of it, there were also a range of construction projects that shaved minutes off the travel times between major hubs to bring them just below multiples of 30 minutes (and 15 minutes in some cases). This makes it much easier to coordinate arrivals and departures and minimize transfer times. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_2000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_2000
- jokteur 4y ago
  Author here: great suggestion, I will add this at the end of the article for supplementary readings
- londons_explore 4y ago
  I hope that every infrastructure project tries to make a measure of the total economic gain of said project. Getting people around quicker is part of that (many models use a cost-per-hour for citizen time on the train). More efficient connections are part of travel time, and a simulation of a large number of potential journeys on some proposed infrastructure would show that. That means that when government is considering how to allocate $X of budget, they should naturally end up choosing projects that help align the schedules, even if nobody explicitly tried to do such an alignment, simply by choosing the projects that are best value for money.
  - jeromegv 4y ago
    They do this for transit projects in Toronto. They calculate the total infrastructure + operational cost of the project over 60 years then compare it with the estimated economical benefits of having this project. They still ended up approving many negative projects, even while there were other cheaper/better located transit projects with more benefits. The political cost of cancelling those projects was higher (ex: Mayor has campaigned on getting it approved and there was no way he would get back on that) It's still interesting to see it and calculate it, as a matter of transparency, but its still not a guarantee of success. https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/costs-for-scarborough-subway-and-eglinton-west-lrt-exceed-economic-benefits-by-billions-metrolinx-1.4833247 https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/costs-for-scarborough-subway-and-...
belter 4y ago
No doubt Swiss train network is excellent. If we are to trust to published statistics form other countries for 2018, and using for the Swiss system, the 2021 data mentioned in the article: "about 92% of passenger trains were on-time" this would make it for punctuality, somewhat middle of the league. Behind Poland, Greece and Bulgaria for example. This is assuming being on time is: "a delay of five minutes or less". For Swiss network the article uses the definition: "a delay of three minutes or less". "Share of regional and local passenger rail services classified as punctual in Europe in 2018, by country": https://www.statista.com/statistics/1255048/punctuality-regional-passenger-rail-services-europe-by-country/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1255048/punctuality-regi...
- bigDinosaur 4y ago
  Hopefully European countries aren't prone to manipulating the statistics. An example that used to happen in my (Australian) city: if a train was running late, they'd skip stations: magically, it now arrived at its destination on time!
  - CHsurfer 4y ago
    Was on a Swiss train that did exactly this yesterday. To be fair, the delay originated in Italy (20 minutes late)and there was a minimal impact for people wanting to get to or leave from that city (Bern) as passenger on the affected train could get off one stop early and then catch another train to finish their leg and passengers trying to board the train in Bern just had to catch another train to the subsequent stop (Olten) to get on the late train there. Finally, this was the first time in over 20 years of light rail use in Switzerland that I experienced this.
    - tonfa 4y ago
      > Was on a Swiss train that did exactly this yesterday. Though there's usually replacement trains for those use cases. The main stations have a standby train (Dispozug) ready to immediately replace any train that's cancelled or delayed (and avoid propagating delays). https://twitter.com/SBBTrainDriver/status/1508095261414936576 https://twitter.com/SBBTrainDriver/status/150809526141493657... (is an example, the driver spends 3h+ just waiting in the train in case it needs to replace another train)
jgrahamc 4y ago
If you're wondering about the title here I assume that the writer is a French speaker and is using the word "correspondance" meaning "transfer or connection".
- jokteur 4y ago
  You are right, thanks. I changed it
config_yml 4y ago
Man it costs a lot of money to maintain this, but Switzerland will continue to invest heavily into rail service, backed by the public: https://www.bav.admin.ch/bav/en/home/modes-of-transport/railways/rail-infrastructure/expansion-programmes/further-expansion-programmes.html https://www.bav.admin.ch/bav/en/home/modes-of-transport/rail... One project I find pretty cool is the 4 track expansion via tunnel under and through an existing village: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vi2rmEl8ULA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vi2rmEl8ULA
- runeks 4y ago
  > Man it costs a lot of money to maintain this, but Switzerland will continue to invest heavily into rail service, backed by the public: https://www.bav.admin.ch/bav/en/home/modes-of-transport/rail https://www.bav.admin.ch/bav/en/home/modes-of-transport/rail... Isn’t it paid for through ticket fees? Or is it subsidized by the state?
  - dom9301k 4y ago
    Usually the ticket fee are very, very small part of it. The heavy weight is public founding, taxes. I gladly play my tax here in Swiz because the system works. There are "big" delays ever here, yesterday something like 30 minutes, but is like 1 time out of 100.
  - mellavora 4y ago
    > Or is it subsidized by the state? "subsidized", yes, but like any other investment the idea is that it will create positive economic value across the whole country and across a long time horizon, in a way that the tickets cannot recapture (for example, every person on the train is one less person on the road -- less cars is a benefit for the other drivers and reduces road wear/maintenance cost and reduces accidents/health-care costs). Thus perfect for a government project. Create vast value and the recapture mechanism is taxes. Luxembourg went to totally free public transportation. Bus, train, light rail. Total game-changer. More countries should do this.
    - 4y ago
kuon 4y ago
In the area where I live (near Aigle on the east of Leman) the main problem is that there are only two tracks (one each direction) going to Geneva. Which makes it hard to have frequent stops. I live at 100m from the tracks, but I have to do 8km to take the train at Aigle. I lived in Tokyo for some time, and you have stops everywhere, mainly possible because there is so many tracks running. But in Switzerland, many places suffers from this.
- jokteur 4y ago
  Yes, as it is very densely build around the tracks, it is now almost impossible to build more tracks without paying a lot.
- cinntaile 4y ago
  Not having too many stops makes travelling a lot faster (good for when alternatives exist) and less delay prone, but it sure sucks when the nearest stop is quite far away.
atemerev 4y ago
Not only this, the transportation network is intermodal-synchronized. Meaning that e.g. most buses will come to train stations at times that are convenient to take a train to somewhere, without much waiting. This is achieved by constant numerical simulations and optimizations of real transport patterns.
- archerx 4y ago
  Has anybody told this to Morges? I would routinely get off the train in Bussigny just to watch the bus leave the bus stop as everyone is arriving. We would collectively let out a sigh of disgust. I've seen many people confront the following bus drivers about this problem, I know the drivers are not in control but some people just vent their frustrations on them anyway. I even saw a mass walk out of an MBC bus because they were so disgusted with the service. At least the TL (Transport Lausanne) isn't garbage like MBC.
  - jokteur 4y ago
    Once per year, you are allowed to complain on https://www.projet-horaire.ch/fr/prise-de-position.html https://www.projet-horaire.ch/fr/prise-de-position.html. However, the delay for next years timetable has already passed. I did this once for a bus to a village which didn't wait on the train and they made corrections for the next scheduling. So I guess it works ?
    - archerx 4y ago
      That's pretty cool, thanks for the info!
  - atemerev 4y ago
    The problem with this is that if buses come rarely enough, you can optimize either for bus-train or for train-bus transition, and you could get in the unlucky part :(
  - snovv_crash 4y ago
    MBC was consistently rushing, late and occasionally just never arrived (particularly the 701). I think this is a localized issue though, I don't see this anywhere else.
archerx 4y ago
My train to and from work has been late almost every day since last year. I feel like I don't live in Switzerland. So where are the punctual trains that this article is talking about and I am paying so much for?
- jokteur 4y ago
  This is what you get with averages: you may have lots of problems on one particular line, but compared to the sheer numbers of daily trains in Switzerland that are on time, it doesn't change the average so much.
  - archerx 4y ago
    The same train almost everyday for over a year? I'm sorry but the CFF loves smelling their own farts talking about how great they are but let's be honest here the Romandie part gets treated like a second class citizen. The trains are dirty, I remember seeing the same goop and grime on an inside train wall for over a month (I'm very consistent with my train timing so I ended up mostly taking the same train). The trains are late all the time, even yesterday for a simple trip from Vevey to Lausanne the train was late and I saw a lot of +5 min and more delays for other trains at the stations. I know things are better in Swiss German parts but my experience has been so I have considered maybe getting a car or anything to avoid the trains.
    - jokteur 4y ago
      I am sorry that you have this kind of experience. Vevey - Morges is really a weak point of the network, and I do agree that the Romandie gets treated like a second class citizen. I also use the train daily to get to Romandie (to Lausanne), and I almost never have problems: maybe the train is late every two weeks by 5 minutes.
      - archerx 4y ago
        Maybe you're lucky or my route is cursed, either way I hope you don't have to go through my awful experience. I've had hours of delays over the past year (and it is making me angry). It's sad but when I would see the delay was on 5mins I would do sigh of relief because 15-20min delays were becoming common and a 5min delay at this point becomes tolerable. Also to add extra salt to the wound, the train would leave 10mins and then wait an extra 10mins in front of the Lausanne station because reasons. In the end a 10min trip became 30mins.
rspoerri 4y ago
i just encountered this video while browsing around from this topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTnFpKCAJtE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTnFpKCAJtE Very interesting documentation on the process of tunneling.
flohofwoe 4y ago
Theoretically, such an integrated timetable likely also exists in Germany. And I definitely don't want to complain, all connections from my hillbilly home village to the capital run at a one hour clock cycle or better, and I only need to switch trains twice on the whole journey. If it works, it works great, but if any train is late (and usually that's the ICE between Hamburg and Munich), then all bets are off :)
- Narretz 4y ago
  Something like an integrated timetable for Germany is actually in planning: https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutschlandtakt https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutschlandtakt, but it looks like it focuses on high speed routes.
londons_explore 4y ago
Switzerland is a very rich country per capita. It can afford to spend a lot on public transit to get a very good service. That's important to remember when wondering if these ideas could be applied to your country.
- bigbizisverywyz 4y ago
  One of the reason Switzerland is a rich country per-capita is that it has used its resources very wisely by investing in ubiquitous public transport throughout the whole country.
- DeathArrow 4y ago
  Switzerland has also a lot a lot of mountainous landscape and use a lot of tunnels and viaducts. Wages for construction workers are larger, construction work is more expensive. In some other countries it might be cheaper to build a transit systems using the same ideas.
  - seanmcdirmid 4y ago
    China has a lot of viaducts and tunnels for its HSR and expressway systems. In fact, it is more of a worse case than Switzerland since it’s major cities aren’t really connected by valleys.
- jeffbee 4y ago
  It has approximately the same GDP per capita as the San Francisco Bay Area, while having also about the same population, but more than double the land area. And yet, while I could take a direct train from Basel to Zürich in less than an hour, the similar trip from Berkeley (comparable in size to Basel) to San Jose (much larger than Zürich) would require a minimum of 1 transfer and take over 2 hours. Our trip isn't even cheaper. It would be 17 CHF at full price on SBB, round trip, but it would be $11.40 each way on BART+VTA The fact is we're rich as anybody here and what we spent our money on is 12-lane freeways.
  - Leherenn 4y ago
MichaelRazum 4y ago
Can confirm. Trains are good. BUT in some situations very expensive, where you have to pay like 20$ for 20 minutes. And it is not transperent, why some roads are more expensive then others.
neosat 4y ago
Having experienced this during an exchange program, without any car there, I never once felt constrained that I couldn't travel where I wanted. A great example that I wish every country aspired to emulate
toss1 4y ago
The people running the Boston Transit system REALLY need to read this Very impressed with the Swiss system. I could consistently take my seat, and watch a station clock as the departure time approached, and the train would inevitably start to roll on the very second. It seemed like the conductors really took pride in the exactness. It was also worrisome one evening when I was traveling alone with all my ski racing gear (multiple bags and ski bags). The schedule showed elapsed time between stop-departure as one minute at the small town station where I had to disembark. The doors seemed to open randomly at one end of the car or the other, but never both, and no conductor to be found to ask. I got all ready, sprinted with the gear to the open door, got everything off, and the train indeed left in 60 seconds. Fortunately, I was so nervous that I managed to get everything off with about 30sec to spare...
- sschueller 4y ago
  The Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge built during the big dig was designed by a Swiss. I recall reading that during construction the designers visited the site and noticed there being an issue (one of many at the big dig) where the rebar was incorrectly spaced and had to be completely redone or it would have collapsed before the opening.
eterevsky 4y ago
It would be interesting to see what will happen if the times of the trains are moved to random other times within the hour. In might well be that short transfer times is just statistical consequence of having many scheduled trains. There are probably some trains that are intentionally synchronized, but I don't think there's too many of them, because synchronizing all trains is simply impossible. For instance if you have a timetable where it's convenient to transfer from train A to train B, then in the same timetable it will be inconvenient to transfer from B to A since you will have to wait almost 30 minutes (or an hour for hourly trains). Also a nitpick: "Gemeinde (administrative limit of a city)". Gemeinde means "municipality". All small villages belong to some municipalities.
- jokteur 4y ago
  Author here: it would be a good point of comparison, to generate a random network and look at the same statistics. I will do this maybe in a future article.
  - eterevsky 4y ago
    I'll be sure to read it. :) Just to clarify, not another network, just shift all trains by a random number of minutes.
- denni9th 4y ago
  It is possible for train A and train B to arrive at the same time, and depart at the same time, allowing convenient transfers in both directions. From my brief experience on Swiss railways, I found this arrangement to be quite common.
  - eterevsky 4y ago
    A train usually stops at the station for only around a minute, so there is no time to change to another platform unless another train arrives later. There are some trains that stop at the big train station for a longer period of time, so it might theoretically be possible. I live in Switzerland and I don't remember ever changing trains like that (though maybe I just didn't notice).
jkarni 4y ago
I'm currently reading this in the Bern train station, since my train to Basel was cancelled altogether. (Though yes, there's another one soon.)
BXLE_1-1-BitIs1 4y ago
An interesting contrast to Alberta where you pretty much have to have a car to get to the mountains for hiking, climbing, skiing, biking, scenic dining... Public transit in the mountain national parks is limited to daily hostel shuttles and a bus between Banff and Jasper. However I have been able to finagle a ride on a tour bus to Takkakaw Falls and come back a week later. As for provincial parks and trailheads, forget it. Back in the '80s, a two lane highway was sufficient. The lack of transit has necessitated an extremely expensive twinning of the Trans Canada highway from Alberta to British Columbia. The Swiss fares and timetables enable people to get their recreation without having a car and paying gas, registration, maintenance, parking... That's one good way to limit global warming - brought to you in large part by the car centered North American suburb.
alx__ 4y ago
What's wild is that the width of Switzerland is nearly the distance between SF and LA. We're still figuring out how to build one train line. On mostly flat ground. Maybe when I'm retired we'll have a better transit system
_zoltan_ 4y ago
I had to be in Genf for an appointment at our temporary embassy (normally living in Zurich) and before the day I bought a "day GA" - a pass that allowed me to travel almost all of Switzerland for a fixed price. The train takes around 3 hours or so one way, so once there, I just hopped on a bus (covered by the GA), did what I went there to do, then did the trip back as well. I had an electric socket under my seat so I could work on the train. Cost? 69 CHF for the day. (Or 59? ish.). Cheap enough.

229 points by jokteur 4y ago

immmmmm 4y ago

Swiss here. Amazing system, using it everyday. Brutally expensive tickets tho.

baq 4y ago
expensive in absolute or relative terms? is it expensive e.g. compared to a car?
- jokteur 4y ago
  I would say, if you take single tickets (even with the half-fare card), the tickets are quite more expensive than the trip with a normal car (counting costs of car, of gas, insurrance, ...). However, if you have a monthly fare because you go somewhere regularly, it is still expensive, but much more managable. The monthly General Abo (unlimited travel for all public transports in Switzerland) is ~340$/month. A parking spot in a city could already be from 80$ to 200$ a month.
  - cybrox 4y ago
    I'd like to add that the fact that single tickets are [sometimes too] expensive in some cases is due to the approach of billing by geographic zones, which has its own up- and downsides. For example: If I want to go from somewhere around Lake Zurich to Zurich, I have to pay to "travel in every geographical zone" between me and Zurich. However, this also allows me to travel freely in these zones. In addition to that, if you pay for a return trip (which most people usually do), you automatically pay for travelling freely in these zones in any direction for a full 24 hours. So assuming a half-fare card, I pay CHF 3.20 to take the bus 500m and back, which is ridiculously expensive for that distance, however, I "only" pay CHF 12.90 for riding all forms of PT (train, bus, ship, etc.) between me and Zurich, including the whole city for a full day, which is relatively reasonable for Zurich standards.
  - grncdr 4y ago
    That is way cheaper than I would have guessed. A yearly subscription for public transport in Berlin alone costs at least twice that.
    - p1anecrazy 4y ago
      S/he wrote 340 a month, not a year
      - herbst 4y ago
        City tickets in Switzerland also are around 300-500/year. (sure our cities are nowhere near Berlin in size) the 340/m option does allow you to use nearly any transport (boats, trains, buses, some cable cars) in the whole country including price reductions (up to 50%) for most non-included transport methods (like private mountain trains or tourist hot spot cable cars).
        a4a4a4a4 4y ago
        > City tickets in Switzerland also are around 300-500/year Zurich zone 110 (city center) is 782chf/year ($816) for the non-transferable one. Bern is 790chf/year. I'm not sure where you're getting "300-500/year". https://www.zvv.ch/zvv/de/abos-und-tickets/abos/netzpass.html https://www.zvv.ch/zvv/de/abos-und-tickets/abos/netzpass.htm... https://www.mylibero.ch/de/libero-abo/jahresabo https://www.mylibero.ch/de/libero-abo/jahresabo
        herbst 4y ago
        That's absolutely new to me. Last time I got a Libero it was like 380 or so for 2 zones. Thanks for the correction
  - runeks 4y ago
    > I would say, if you take single tickets (even with the half-fare card), the tickets are quite more expensive than the trip with a normal car (counting costs of car, of gas, insurrance, ...). Which numbers are you using for this calculation? I assume you have some price-per-kilometer traveled by car (all expenses included) and by train?
- herbst 4y ago
  Swiss here, it always depends. Some rides are cheaper by car but take less time by train and you have WiFi and fresh coffee in trains so it's only partially travel time partially leisure or work time. Some routes are more expensive, but again way more comfortable than a car. The there are dozens of hacks to save. Early booking, last minute bookings, half fair (which is only $200 or so a year and makes you pay half for everything including boats and some mountain trains), $50 24h all inclusive tickets, ... IMO if you assume our median income to be 3 times that of Austria (or Germany, Italy for that matter). And our tickets on average cost only 1.5-2x as much while we actually have one of the best networks you can think of I would say it's not expensive at all. My all in leasing car is $500 + petrol. For 2 people getting 2 all inklusive Tickets would still be cheaper.
  - cybrox 4y ago
    Half fare card is CHF 185 for the first year or CHF 165 for every subsequent year (CHF 120 / CHF 100 if you're 16-26). For anyone planning to spend any amount of time in Switzerland and using PT, it is well worth considering. It does exactly what it says, you only pay half. So assuming you travel from Zurich to Bern (CHF 51 -> CHF 26, you safe CHF 25), it's worth it after only 8 trips.
    - seanmcdirmid 4y ago
      Everyone seems to have a half price card except tourists. I think this is designed to get subsidize tourists less, because otherwise Swiss rail and metro prices appear twice as much as other European countries.
      - myrion 4y ago
        Tourists have access to tourist-only specials though, which make up for that, I think: https://www.sbb.ch/en/leisure-holidays/inspiration/international-guests/swiss-travel-pass.html https://www.sbb.ch/en/leisure-holidays/inspiration/internati...
        4y ago
tragomaskhalos 4y ago
That's not a bad trade-off to be fair. In the UK tickets (at least inter-city) are also brutally expensive but the system is, to put it kindly, often flakey.
- midasuni 4y ago
  I had a delay repay for the first time in years a few weeks ago - someone threw themselves under a train at Milton Keynes just before my train was due to leave Euston. I don’t consider £25 each way Manchester-London to be brutally expensive to be honest - http://brfares.com/!faredetail?orig=MAN&dest=EUS&rte=371&tkt=SVR http://brfares.com/!faredetail?orig=MAN&dest=EUS&rte=371&tkt...
  - Zenst 4y ago
    Shows as £46.70, which still isn't bad, though off-peak is often less painful. If you have to use the train to commute to work, then things start raking up. I live 15 miles outside London and 17 years ago was paying best part of £2k a year just to get into central london and back, today it would be the best part of £3k a year to make that same journey. Using the same tracks, (probably trains) and stations all those years ago. Though more people than back then, which was already at levels upon peak work commutes that saw you playing sardines.
    - CaptainZapp 4y ago
      That almost gets you one year of travel in 2nd class throughout the entire Swiss train network (including public transport in cities).
      - midasuni 4y ago
        Switzerland has a population of less than london. £3k would get you transport throughout london too - rail and bus.
    - iso1631 4y ago
      Nobody should be commuting from Manchester to London. That's £46.70 return, so £23.35 each way, arriving in London about 1030. Peak time london commuting is the most expensive part of the network to deliver, as it requires increased amount of capital that's mostly idle, yet peak time commuters get massive discounts compared with occasional use. Compare Reading to London. A season ticket works out to be about £22 return for 5 days a week, a normal peak time ticket is £52.10.
CaptainZapp 4y ago
Another Swiss here. Brutally expensive? Sure, when you look at full fare tickets. Since every Swiss, who uses public transport owns a half fare card those prices are (mostly) halfed, though. When it comes to commuter travel prices become outright reasonable. The best deal, if you use the train for a regular commute intercity is the Generalabonnement[0]. ca. $4000 (6500 for first class) for a year of unrestricted travel throughout the (almost) whole country on any train is actually a steal. There are also special saver tickets, restricted to a specific train and usually booked well in advance, which can be outright cheap. [0] https://www.sbb.ch/en/travelcards-and-tickets/railpasses/ga/ga-travelcard-prices.html https://www.sbb.ch/en/travelcards-and-tickets/railpasses/ga/...
- tauchunfall 4y ago
  German here, who traveled a lot through Switzerland. I find it even more amazing that there are more people who have a Generalabonnement than a Bahncard 100 (the German equivalent which is a bit cheaper). [1] Commuting between Fribourg and Zurich was always great, even when there were only circa five minutes to change trains in Bern. It's so efficient, I always catched my train in Bern. [1] >2019: 500'000 Exemplare des GA sind seit dieser Woche im Umlauf. Dies entspricht im Vergleich zu vor 20 Jahren einer Verzwanzigfachung. >Anzahl der Besitzer einer BahnCard 100 bis 2021. Die BahnCard 100 der Deutschen Bahn wurde lange Zeit immer beliebter, im Jahr 2021 gab es rund 36.000 Besitzer.
  - phaer 4y ago
    > I find it even more amazing that there are more people who have a Generalabonnement than a Bahncard 100 (the German equivalent which is a bit cheaper). [1] To contextualize this a bit: Switzerland has about a tenth of the German population (~8.5M vs ~83M)
  - ls15 4y ago
    > I find it even more amazing that there are more people who have a Generalabonnement than a Bahncard 100 (the German equivalent which is a bit cheaper). GA costs about 50% of a typical monthly Swiss salary. BC100 costs about 100% of a typical monthly German salary.

mfsch 4y ago

What isn’t explained in the article is how this was made possible. While carefully adjusting departure times is certainly part of it, there were also a range of construction projects that shaved minutes off the travel times between major hubs to bring them just below multiples of 30 minutes (and 15 minutes in some cases). This makes it much easier to coordinate arrivals and departures and minimize transfer times. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_2000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_2000

jokteur 4y ago
Author here: great suggestion, I will add this at the end of the article for supplementary readings
londons_explore 4y ago
I hope that every infrastructure project tries to make a measure of the total economic gain of said project. Getting people around quicker is part of that (many models use a cost-per-hour for citizen time on the train). More efficient connections are part of travel time, and a simulation of a large number of potential journeys on some proposed infrastructure would show that. That means that when government is considering how to allocate $X of budget, they should naturally end up choosing projects that help align the schedules, even if nobody explicitly tried to do such an alignment, simply by choosing the projects that are best value for money.
- jeromegv 4y ago
  They do this for transit projects in Toronto. They calculate the total infrastructure + operational cost of the project over 60 years then compare it with the estimated economical benefits of having this project. They still ended up approving many negative projects, even while there were other cheaper/better located transit projects with more benefits. The political cost of cancelling those projects was higher (ex: Mayor has campaigned on getting it approved and there was no way he would get back on that) It's still interesting to see it and calculate it, as a matter of transparency, but its still not a guarantee of success. https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/costs-for-scarborough-subway-and-eglinton-west-lrt-exceed-economic-benefits-by-billions-metrolinx-1.4833247 https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/costs-for-scarborough-subway-and-...

belter 4y ago

No doubt Swiss train network is excellent. If we are to trust to published statistics form other countries for 2018, and using for the Swiss system, the 2021 data mentioned in the article: "about 92% of passenger trains were on-time" this would make it for punctuality, somewhat middle of the league. Behind Poland, Greece and Bulgaria for example. This is assuming being on time is: "a delay of five minutes or less". For Swiss network the article uses the definition: "a delay of three minutes or less". "Share of regional and local passenger rail services classified as punctual in Europe in 2018, by country": https://www.statista.com/statistics/1255048/punctuality-regional-passenger-rail-services-europe-by-country/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1255048/punctuality-regi...

bigDinosaur 4y ago
Hopefully European countries aren't prone to manipulating the statistics. An example that used to happen in my (Australian) city: if a train was running late, they'd skip stations: magically, it now arrived at its destination on time!
- CHsurfer 4y ago
  Was on a Swiss train that did exactly this yesterday. To be fair, the delay originated in Italy (20 minutes late)and there was a minimal impact for people wanting to get to or leave from that city (Bern) as passenger on the affected train could get off one stop early and then catch another train to finish their leg and passengers trying to board the train in Bern just had to catch another train to the subsequent stop (Olten) to get on the late train there. Finally, this was the first time in over 20 years of light rail use in Switzerland that I experienced this.
  - tonfa 4y ago
    > Was on a Swiss train that did exactly this yesterday. Though there's usually replacement trains for those use cases. The main stations have a standby train (Dispozug) ready to immediately replace any train that's cancelled or delayed (and avoid propagating delays). https://twitter.com/SBBTrainDriver/status/1508095261414936576 https://twitter.com/SBBTrainDriver/status/150809526141493657... (is an example, the driver spends 3h+ just waiting in the train in case it needs to replace another train)

jgrahamc 4y ago

If you're wondering about the title here I assume that the writer is a French speaker and is using the word "correspondance" meaning "transfer or connection".

jokteur 4y ago
You are right, thanks. I changed it

config_yml 4y ago

Man it costs a lot of money to maintain this, but Switzerland will continue to invest heavily into rail service, backed by the public: https://www.bav.admin.ch/bav/en/home/modes-of-transport/railways/rail-infrastructure/expansion-programmes/further-expansion-programmes.html https://www.bav.admin.ch/bav/en/home/modes-of-transport/rail... One project I find pretty cool is the 4 track expansion via tunnel under and through an existing village: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vi2rmEl8ULA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vi2rmEl8ULA

runeks 4y ago
> Man it costs a lot of money to maintain this, but Switzerland will continue to invest heavily into rail service, backed by the public: https://www.bav.admin.ch/bav/en/home/modes-of-transport/rail https://www.bav.admin.ch/bav/en/home/modes-of-transport/rail... Isn’t it paid for through ticket fees? Or is it subsidized by the state?
- dom9301k 4y ago
  Usually the ticket fee are very, very small part of it. The heavy weight is public founding, taxes. I gladly play my tax here in Swiz because the system works. There are "big" delays ever here, yesterday something like 30 minutes, but is like 1 time out of 100.
- mellavora 4y ago
  > Or is it subsidized by the state? "subsidized", yes, but like any other investment the idea is that it will create positive economic value across the whole country and across a long time horizon, in a way that the tickets cannot recapture (for example, every person on the train is one less person on the road -- less cars is a benefit for the other drivers and reduces road wear/maintenance cost and reduces accidents/health-care costs). Thus perfect for a government project. Create vast value and the recapture mechanism is taxes. Luxembourg went to totally free public transportation. Bus, train, light rail. Total game-changer. More countries should do this.
  - 4y ago

kuon 4y ago

In the area where I live (near Aigle on the east of Leman) the main problem is that there are only two tracks (one each direction) going to Geneva. Which makes it hard to have frequent stops. I live at 100m from the tracks, but I have to do 8km to take the train at Aigle. I lived in Tokyo for some time, and you have stops everywhere, mainly possible because there is so many tracks running. But in Switzerland, many places suffers from this.

jokteur 4y ago
Yes, as it is very densely build around the tracks, it is now almost impossible to build more tracks without paying a lot.
cinntaile 4y ago
Not having too many stops makes travelling a lot faster (good for when alternatives exist) and less delay prone, but it sure sucks when the nearest stop is quite far away.

atemerev 4y ago

Not only this, the transportation network is intermodal-synchronized. Meaning that e.g. most buses will come to train stations at times that are convenient to take a train to somewhere, without much waiting. This is achieved by constant numerical simulations and optimizations of real transport patterns.

archerx 4y ago
Has anybody told this to Morges? I would routinely get off the train in Bussigny just to watch the bus leave the bus stop as everyone is arriving. We would collectively let out a sigh of disgust. I've seen many people confront the following bus drivers about this problem, I know the drivers are not in control but some people just vent their frustrations on them anyway. I even saw a mass walk out of an MBC bus because they were so disgusted with the service. At least the TL (Transport Lausanne) isn't garbage like MBC.
- jokteur 4y ago
  Once per year, you are allowed to complain on https://www.projet-horaire.ch/fr/prise-de-position.html https://www.projet-horaire.ch/fr/prise-de-position.html. However, the delay for next years timetable has already passed. I did this once for a bus to a village which didn't wait on the train and they made corrections for the next scheduling. So I guess it works ?
  - archerx 4y ago
    That's pretty cool, thanks for the info!
- atemerev 4y ago
  The problem with this is that if buses come rarely enough, you can optimize either for bus-train or for train-bus transition, and you could get in the unlucky part :(
- snovv_crash 4y ago
  MBC was consistently rushing, late and occasionally just never arrived (particularly the 701). I think this is a localized issue though, I don't see this anywhere else.

archerx 4y ago

My train to and from work has been late almost every day since last year. I feel like I don't live in Switzerland. So where are the punctual trains that this article is talking about and I am paying so much for?

jokteur 4y ago
This is what you get with averages: you may have lots of problems on one particular line, but compared to the sheer numbers of daily trains in Switzerland that are on time, it doesn't change the average so much.
- archerx 4y ago
  The same train almost everyday for over a year? I'm sorry but the CFF loves smelling their own farts talking about how great they are but let's be honest here the Romandie part gets treated like a second class citizen. The trains are dirty, I remember seeing the same goop and grime on an inside train wall for over a month (I'm very consistent with my train timing so I ended up mostly taking the same train). The trains are late all the time, even yesterday for a simple trip from Vevey to Lausanne the train was late and I saw a lot of +5 min and more delays for other trains at the stations. I know things are better in Swiss German parts but my experience has been so I have considered maybe getting a car or anything to avoid the trains.
  - jokteur 4y ago
    I am sorry that you have this kind of experience. Vevey - Morges is really a weak point of the network, and I do agree that the Romandie gets treated like a second class citizen. I also use the train daily to get to Romandie (to Lausanne), and I almost never have problems: maybe the train is late every two weeks by 5 minutes.
    - archerx 4y ago
      Maybe you're lucky or my route is cursed, either way I hope you don't have to go through my awful experience. I've had hours of delays over the past year (and it is making me angry). It's sad but when I would see the delay was on 5mins I would do sigh of relief because 15-20min delays were becoming common and a 5min delay at this point becomes tolerable. Also to add extra salt to the wound, the train would leave 10mins and then wait an extra 10mins in front of the Lausanne station because reasons. In the end a 10min trip became 30mins.

rspoerri 4y ago

i just encountered this video while browsing around from this topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTnFpKCAJtE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTnFpKCAJtE Very interesting documentation on the process of tunneling.

flohofwoe 4y ago

Theoretically, such an integrated timetable likely also exists in Germany. And I definitely don't want to complain, all connections from my hillbilly home village to the capital run at a one hour clock cycle or better, and I only need to switch trains twice on the whole journey. If it works, it works great, but if any train is late (and usually that's the ICE between Hamburg and Munich), then all bets are off :)

Narretz 4y ago
Something like an integrated timetable for Germany is actually in planning: https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutschlandtakt https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutschlandtakt, but it looks like it focuses on high speed routes.

londons_explore 4y ago

Switzerland is a very rich country per capita. It can afford to spend a lot on public transit to get a very good service. That's important to remember when wondering if these ideas could be applied to your country.

bigbizisverywyz 4y ago
One of the reason Switzerland is a rich country per-capita is that it has used its resources very wisely by investing in ubiquitous public transport throughout the whole country.
DeathArrow 4y ago
Switzerland has also a lot a lot of mountainous landscape and use a lot of tunnels and viaducts. Wages for construction workers are larger, construction work is more expensive. In some other countries it might be cheaper to build a transit systems using the same ideas.
- seanmcdirmid 4y ago
  China has a lot of viaducts and tunnels for its HSR and expressway systems. In fact, it is more of a worse case than Switzerland since it’s major cities aren’t really connected by valleys.
jeffbee 4y ago
It has approximately the same GDP per capita as the San Francisco Bay Area, while having also about the same population, but more than double the land area. And yet, while I could take a direct train from Basel to Zürich in less than an hour, the similar trip from Berkeley (comparable in size to Basel) to San Jose (much larger than Zürich) would require a minimum of 1 transfer and take over 2 hours. Our trip isn't even cheaper. It would be 17 CHF at full price on SBB, round trip, but it would be $11.40 each way on BART+VTA The fact is we're rich as anybody here and what we spent our money on is 12-lane freeways.
- Leherenn 4y ago

MichaelRazum 4y ago

Can confirm. Trains are good. BUT in some situations very expensive, where you have to pay like 20$ for 20 minutes. And it is not transperent, why some roads are more expensive then others.

neosat 4y ago

Having experienced this during an exchange program, without any car there, I never once felt constrained that I couldn't travel where I wanted. A great example that I wish every country aspired to emulate

toss1 4y ago

The people running the Boston Transit system REALLY need to read this Very impressed with the Swiss system. I could consistently take my seat, and watch a station clock as the departure time approached, and the train would inevitably start to roll on the very second. It seemed like the conductors really took pride in the exactness. It was also worrisome one evening when I was traveling alone with all my ski racing gear (multiple bags and ski bags). The schedule showed elapsed time between stop-departure as one minute at the small town station where I had to disembark. The doors seemed to open randomly at one end of the car or the other, but never both, and no conductor to be found to ask. I got all ready, sprinted with the gear to the open door, got everything off, and the train indeed left in 60 seconds. Fortunately, I was so nervous that I managed to get everything off with about 30sec to spare...

sschueller 4y ago
The Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge built during the big dig was designed by a Swiss. I recall reading that during construction the designers visited the site and noticed there being an issue (one of many at the big dig) where the rebar was incorrectly spaced and had to be completely redone or it would have collapsed before the opening.

eterevsky 4y ago

It would be interesting to see what will happen if the times of the trains are moved to random other times within the hour. In might well be that short transfer times is just statistical consequence of having many scheduled trains. There are probably some trains that are intentionally synchronized, but I don't think there's too many of them, because synchronizing all trains is simply impossible. For instance if you have a timetable where it's convenient to transfer from train A to train B, then in the same timetable it will be inconvenient to transfer from B to A since you will have to wait almost 30 minutes (or an hour for hourly trains). Also a nitpick: "Gemeinde (administrative limit of a city)". Gemeinde means "municipality". All small villages belong to some municipalities.

jokteur 4y ago
Author here: it would be a good point of comparison, to generate a random network and look at the same statistics. I will do this maybe in a future article.
- eterevsky 4y ago
  I'll be sure to read it. :) Just to clarify, not another network, just shift all trains by a random number of minutes.
denni9th 4y ago
It is possible for train A and train B to arrive at the same time, and depart at the same time, allowing convenient transfers in both directions. From my brief experience on Swiss railways, I found this arrangement to be quite common.
- eterevsky 4y ago
  A train usually stops at the station for only around a minute, so there is no time to change to another platform unless another train arrives later. There are some trains that stop at the big train station for a longer period of time, so it might theoretically be possible. I live in Switzerland and I don't remember ever changing trains like that (though maybe I just didn't notice).

jkarni 4y ago

I'm currently reading this in the Bern train station, since my train to Basel was cancelled altogether. (Though yes, there's another one soon.)

BXLE_1-1-BitIs1 4y ago

An interesting contrast to Alberta where you pretty much have to have a car to get to the mountains for hiking, climbing, skiing, biking, scenic dining... Public transit in the mountain national parks is limited to daily hostel shuttles and a bus between Banff and Jasper. However I have been able to finagle a ride on a tour bus to Takkakaw Falls and come back a week later. As for provincial parks and trailheads, forget it. Back in the '80s, a two lane highway was sufficient. The lack of transit has necessitated an extremely expensive twinning of the Trans Canada highway from Alberta to British Columbia. The Swiss fares and timetables enable people to get their recreation without having a car and paying gas, registration, maintenance, parking... That's one good way to limit global warming - brought to you in large part by the car centered North American suburb.

alx__ 4y ago

What's wild is that the width of Switzerland is nearly the distance between SF and LA. We're still figuring out how to build one train line. On mostly flat ground. Maybe when I'm retired we'll have a better transit system

_zoltan_ 4y ago

I had to be in Genf for an appointment at our temporary embassy (normally living in Zurich) and before the day I bought a "day GA" - a pass that allowed me to travel almost all of Switzerland for a fixed price. The train takes around 3 hours or so one way, so once there, I just hopped on a bus (covered by the GA), did what I went there to do, then did the trip back as well. I had an electric socket under my seat so I could work on the train. Cost? 69 CHF for the day. (Or 59? ish.). Cheap enough.