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It's hard for foreigners to grasp that our comprehensive public transport network connects even the most remote areas of Switzerland. My parents are living on a

It's hard for foreigners to grasp that our comprehensive public transport network connects even the most remote areas of Switzerland. My parents are living on a farm in the countryside and still I can get there easily by train and bus. If I need some more flexibility (moving stuff, skiing, ...), there are electric car rentals available at any major train stations. It's my ideal version of mobility. PS: The Swiss federal railways also have a large set of open data to enable such cool projects: https://data.sbb.ch/pages/home/ https://data.sbb.ch/pages/home/

drunner 3y ago
One of my favorite YouTubers, not just bikes, did a video last year that highlighted this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muPcHs-E4qc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muPcHs-E4qc
sandworm101 3y ago
Compare me visiting my parents who live in a "remote" town of in BC about 200km from Vancouver. After a ferry and a bus I found myself outside a grocery store asking strangers for a ride north (no taxi service). A kind soul drove me to the highway turnoff. I walked the last five miles. That's what most of North America is like once you step slightly outside of the major cities: No car, no get there.
- pnw 3y ago
  Is that surprising given that you could fit over 200 Switzerlands into Canada and another 200 into the US? BC alone is over 20 times the size of Switzerland. Cars are the best possible option in that case surely?
  - sandworm101 3y ago
    That is correct. Cars are certainly the best option in many circumstances, even from an environmental standpoint. The reason I couldn't get even a taxi was that the taxi company didn't want to drive 30miles just to pick me up, then drive maybe 60miles back after dropping me off. When a small population is spread over a large area, personal vehicles become the most efficient means. That is a large part of why Alaska has the highest rate of private aircraft ownership on the planet. BC rides the literally middle ground between Alaska and the densely populated southern states.
  - alamortsubite 3y ago
    Comparing all of the U.S. or Canada is meaningless, but when you look at regions with similar population densities, then yes, it is surprising. Switzerland only has about half the density of the U.S. East Coast, for example.
    - johannes1234321 3y ago
      And in addition Switzerland has challenging terrain with hills and mountains all over, making train service complicated and even busses non-trivial sometimes
      - ant6n 3y ago
        Pn the other hand, the geography forces people to live in valleys. so population is effectively distributed along corridors —- very conducive to being served by rail and bus lines.
  - panick21_ 3y ago
    The size in itself of is a meaningless metric. I'm baffled that comment like this still get made even on HN. I guess this must be that American just have such a fundamentally distorted view of public transport. The area of Greater Toronto Area has far denser population then Switzerland with far worse public transport. So by any rational metric it should dominate Switzerland in public transport modal shares and convenience. But it doesn't. So when looking for explanations, we need to look deeper. Looking at BC, Vancouver is a city of 675,218 people. The Metro area is 2.463 million. Calgary metro is 1.4 million. Edmonton is another metro area of 1.3 million. And the distance between Edmonton and Calgary isn't even very far. Those are 3 cities that are bigger or comparable to Zürich. I'm not suggesting the population of 'Liard River' of 100 people in the north of BC should have a high speed train to Vancouver. Of course BC as a whole will never have Swiss like public Transit. But if you actually look at where people live, take into account the particular details of the location, you can design a public transport system that is useful for people. But the comment said '200km' from Vancouver. And he also said there was highway 5 miles from the parents house. So somehow they seemed to think it was reasonable to able to build a highway. Highways are expensive infrastructure, and usually you don't built them the middle of nowhere. So it seems from the comment we are not talking about some place that is at least between two places the somebody connected with a highway. If you have enough money for a highway, you can finance a bus route along it. Most people do live reasonable close together and not just a single house in the wilderness. If we look at the density map: https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2006/as-sa/97-550/vignettes/m1bc-eng.htm https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2006/as-sa/97... It seems to me that Vancouver is perfectly placed to have an amazing transport system connecting its city to its metro and its metro to the more outlining towns and villages. There is no reason the great Vancouver area couldn't have Swiss like public transport very every village Then you have a higher speed train connecting Vancouver to Calgary to Edmonton and all the larger towns in between. Then have regional trains or buses going out from that trunk connecting smaller towns and villages. I suspect these town were all originally built because there was railroad there. So yes, BC as a whole is big and densely populated. But that metric alone is meaningless when designing a public transport system that can meaningfully serve the population. Even if you think 'cars are the best option', that's no reason not have have decent public transport. Switzerland, has lots of people in cars and its a very viable option. But despite that, it also has other good types of transport. Sometimes its nice not to have only one option, specially for people who for many reasons can't simply drive. This reoccurring attitude of well its a big country so why even try is so damaging. As if Canada being big had anything to do with why Toronto street cars are a abomination of planning and operations. You have a bit more of a point in regards to BC but even then its wrong for the majority of people.
  - Mordisquitos 3y ago
    Talking about the overall size of Canada is dodging the issue. The scale of the country does provide a justification for not being able to access any arbitrary spot across Canada (or the US) using public transport, but the previous commenter is talking about accessing a town a mere 200 km away from British Columbia's largest city and urban agglomeration — 3rd largest in Canada as a whole. How many Switzerlands can you fit within a 200 km drive from Vancouver [0]? My eyeball guess is that the area is half the area of Switzerland, maybe less than a third if we exclude US territory covered in the map. And what's the population density of that area? Again, ignoring the US, just counting Vancouver's [1] and Victoria's [2] metropolitan areas alone adds up to 3,000,000 inhabitants (more than a third of the population of the whole of Switzerland), so this area's population density is very likely to be similar or even greater than that of Switzerland as a whole. [0] https://www.smappen.com/app/map/802yt https://www.smappen.com/app/map/802yt [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria,_British_Columbia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria,_British_Columbia
panick21_ 3y ago
Usually locations for skiing are very well connected. Trains that go to popular skiing locations of have places to store your equipment. There are also bikes available at most stations. > It's my ideal version of mobility. It can decently be a lot better in a lot of ways. But we have to not just complain but try to objectively criticizes so we can continue to improve. I would like to actually do high-speed rail. Switzerland did really well improving on InterCity trains and got more people to use them. But that became almost a mantra of 'speed doesn't matter'. The actual mantra is 'not as fast as possible, but as fast as required'. This was correct and with the Rail2035 plan, we are going further in that direction. Many InterCity trains go from every 30 min to every 15 min. Basically turning most of the country into an S-Bahn like system. See here if you are interested: https://sbb-step2035.ch/de/personenverkehr/ https://sbb-step2035.ch/de/personenverkehr/ But I think beyond that we should seriously consider a totally new high-speed line, right across the major population centers. That would not just make rail competitive with driving, but beat driving with a big stick. Also this would free up a huge amount of capacity from the existing lines and allow things like 15min regional and inter-regional travel. Plus it would increase cargo capacity. Sadly its currently not in the Rail2050 plan, but there are people pushing for it. Further, I think we can do a lot, a lot better in terms of biking. Compared to the Dutch we are utterly primitive in integrating biking in the larger transport network. In the Netherlands they have figured out that bikes are the optimal feeder system into the rail network and have taken huge advantage of that. Switzerland needs to do so much better in that. Frankly, I think its really useful. I was able to perfectly travel around on Christmas. Getting to family in different parts of the country, no problem.
- palata 3y ago
  > That would not just make rail competitive with driving, but beat driving with a big stick. Between major population centers, I believe it already beats driving by a long shot... I personally don't think it has to be faster: as long as I can work in the train, it's fine if it takes 90min instead of 75. > Further, I think we can do a lot, a lot better in terms of biking. Yes!
  - panick21_ 3y ago
Stevvo 3y ago
Replace "foreigners" with "Americans". Functional public transport is not that special; most countries have it. The main difference in Switzerland is the hostility of the terrain to building infrastructure. If your parents lived on a farm in rural China, you would say the same thing.
- Tainnor 3y ago
  Swiss public transport is IMHO special in three respects: a) density of the network, b) frequency (even remote areas get a bus an hour), c) punctuality. I'm not saying no other country can match this (I haven't been everywhere), but at least Germany or Italy can't.
  - Peanuts99 3y ago
    It is bloody pricey though. Especially for those without a Swisspass.
    - panick21_ 3y ago
      Cheap if you can not have a car instead. Plus if you vacation here you can get 5 day tickets for example, and explore the whole country, it covers various ships, cable cars and so on. It can be a pretty damn good deal if you take advantage of it. For people living here that don't need a full GA (Swisspass is a car that has lots of functions). There is also Halb-Tax to reduce your price significantly, and if you use it frequently you can get even better deal with Halb-Tax Plus. I think its quite reasonably priced for what you get. But if you are a tourist coming in just buying 1 regular ticket it can be expensive. That said lots of local transport is often included with the hotel.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
bwanab 3y ago
And the best part is how reliable and timely the trains and buses are. As a foreigner living there I commuted by bus into Geneva from a suburb. I don't think my bus was ever more than 1 minute late - and this was in the middle of its run. I hate to compare that to my wife's commute here in Boston....
vasile 3y ago
Thanks for the link, author of the website here. For this particular #swisstrains project I was using derived GTFS dataset form this one https://opentransportdata.swiss/en/dataset/timetable-54-2024-hrdf https://opentransportdata.swiss/en/dataset/timetable-54-2024... - this portal contains public transport data from all swiss transport operators (not only SBB)

drunner 3y ago

One of my favorite YouTubers, not just bikes, did a video last year that highlighted this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muPcHs-E4qc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muPcHs-E4qc

sandworm101 3y ago

Compare me visiting my parents who live in a "remote" town of in BC about 200km from Vancouver. After a ferry and a bus I found myself outside a grocery store asking strangers for a ride north (no taxi service). A kind soul drove me to the highway turnoff. I walked the last five miles. That's what most of North America is like once you step slightly outside of the major cities: No car, no get there.

pnw 3y ago
Is that surprising given that you could fit over 200 Switzerlands into Canada and another 200 into the US? BC alone is over 20 times the size of Switzerland. Cars are the best possible option in that case surely?
- sandworm101 3y ago
  That is correct. Cars are certainly the best option in many circumstances, even from an environmental standpoint. The reason I couldn't get even a taxi was that the taxi company didn't want to drive 30miles just to pick me up, then drive maybe 60miles back after dropping me off. When a small population is spread over a large area, personal vehicles become the most efficient means. That is a large part of why Alaska has the highest rate of private aircraft ownership on the planet. BC rides the literally middle ground between Alaska and the densely populated southern states.
- alamortsubite 3y ago
  Comparing all of the U.S. or Canada is meaningless, but when you look at regions with similar population densities, then yes, it is surprising. Switzerland only has about half the density of the U.S. East Coast, for example.
  - johannes1234321 3y ago
    And in addition Switzerland has challenging terrain with hills and mountains all over, making train service complicated and even busses non-trivial sometimes
    - ant6n 3y ago
      Pn the other hand, the geography forces people to live in valleys. so population is effectively distributed along corridors —- very conducive to being served by rail and bus lines.
- panick21_ 3y ago
  The size in itself of is a meaningless metric. I'm baffled that comment like this still get made even on HN. I guess this must be that American just have such a fundamentally distorted view of public transport. The area of Greater Toronto Area has far denser population then Switzerland with far worse public transport. So by any rational metric it should dominate Switzerland in public transport modal shares and convenience. But it doesn't. So when looking for explanations, we need to look deeper. Looking at BC, Vancouver is a city of 675,218 people. The Metro area is 2.463 million. Calgary metro is 1.4 million. Edmonton is another metro area of 1.3 million. And the distance between Edmonton and Calgary isn't even very far. Those are 3 cities that are bigger or comparable to Zürich. I'm not suggesting the population of 'Liard River' of 100 people in the north of BC should have a high speed train to Vancouver. Of course BC as a whole will never have Swiss like public Transit. But if you actually look at where people live, take into account the particular details of the location, you can design a public transport system that is useful for people. But the comment said '200km' from Vancouver. And he also said there was highway 5 miles from the parents house. So somehow they seemed to think it was reasonable to able to build a highway. Highways are expensive infrastructure, and usually you don't built them the middle of nowhere. So it seems from the comment we are not talking about some place that is at least between two places the somebody connected with a highway. If you have enough money for a highway, you can finance a bus route along it. Most people do live reasonable close together and not just a single house in the wilderness. If we look at the density map: https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2006/as-sa/97-550/vignettes/m1bc-eng.htm https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2006/as-sa/97... It seems to me that Vancouver is perfectly placed to have an amazing transport system connecting its city to its metro and its metro to the more outlining towns and villages. There is no reason the great Vancouver area couldn't have Swiss like public transport very every village Then you have a higher speed train connecting Vancouver to Calgary to Edmonton and all the larger towns in between. Then have regional trains or buses going out from that trunk connecting smaller towns and villages. I suspect these town were all originally built because there was railroad there. So yes, BC as a whole is big and densely populated. But that metric alone is meaningless when designing a public transport system that can meaningfully serve the population. Even if you think 'cars are the best option', that's no reason not have have decent public transport. Switzerland, has lots of people in cars and its a very viable option. But despite that, it also has other good types of transport. Sometimes its nice not to have only one option, specially for people who for many reasons can't simply drive. This reoccurring attitude of well its a big country so why even try is so damaging. As if Canada being big had anything to do with why Toronto street cars are a abomination of planning and operations. You have a bit more of a point in regards to BC but even then its wrong for the majority of people.
- Mordisquitos 3y ago
  Talking about the overall size of Canada is dodging the issue. The scale of the country does provide a justification for not being able to access any arbitrary spot across Canada (or the US) using public transport, but the previous commenter is talking about accessing a town a mere 200 km away from British Columbia's largest city and urban agglomeration — 3rd largest in Canada as a whole. How many Switzerlands can you fit within a 200 km drive from Vancouver [0]? My eyeball guess is that the area is half the area of Switzerland, maybe less than a third if we exclude US territory covered in the map. And what's the population density of that area? Again, ignoring the US, just counting Vancouver's [1] and Victoria's [2] metropolitan areas alone adds up to 3,000,000 inhabitants (more than a third of the population of the whole of Switzerland), so this area's population density is very likely to be similar or even greater than that of Switzerland as a whole. [0] https://www.smappen.com/app/map/802yt https://www.smappen.com/app/map/802yt [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria,_British_Columbia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria,_British_Columbia

panick21_ 3y ago

Usually locations for skiing are very well connected. Trains that go to popular skiing locations of have places to store your equipment. There are also bikes available at most stations. > It's my ideal version of mobility. It can decently be a lot better in a lot of ways. But we have to not just complain but try to objectively criticizes so we can continue to improve. I would like to actually do high-speed rail. Switzerland did really well improving on InterCity trains and got more people to use them. But that became almost a mantra of 'speed doesn't matter'. The actual mantra is 'not as fast as possible, but as fast as required'. This was correct and with the Rail2035 plan, we are going further in that direction. Many InterCity trains go from every 30 min to every 15 min. Basically turning most of the country into an S-Bahn like system. See here if you are interested: https://sbb-step2035.ch/de/personenverkehr/ https://sbb-step2035.ch/de/personenverkehr/ But I think beyond that we should seriously consider a totally new high-speed line, right across the major population centers. That would not just make rail competitive with driving, but beat driving with a big stick. Also this would free up a huge amount of capacity from the existing lines and allow things like 15min regional and inter-regional travel. Plus it would increase cargo capacity. Sadly its currently not in the Rail2050 plan, but there are people pushing for it. Further, I think we can do a lot, a lot better in terms of biking. Compared to the Dutch we are utterly primitive in integrating biking in the larger transport network. In the Netherlands they have figured out that bikes are the optimal feeder system into the rail network and have taken huge advantage of that. Switzerland needs to do so much better in that. Frankly, I think its really useful. I was able to perfectly travel around on Christmas. Getting to family in different parts of the country, no problem.

palata 3y ago
> That would not just make rail competitive with driving, but beat driving with a big stick. Between major population centers, I believe it already beats driving by a long shot... I personally don't think it has to be faster: as long as I can work in the train, it's fine if it takes 90min instead of 75. > Further, I think we can do a lot, a lot better in terms of biking. Yes!
- panick21_ 3y ago

Stevvo 3y ago

Replace "foreigners" with "Americans". Functional public transport is not that special; most countries have it. The main difference in Switzerland is the hostility of the terrain to building infrastructure. If your parents lived on a farm in rural China, you would say the same thing.

Tainnor 3y ago
Swiss public transport is IMHO special in three respects: a) density of the network, b) frequency (even remote areas get a bus an hour), c) punctuality. I'm not saying no other country can match this (I haven't been everywhere), but at least Germany or Italy can't.
- Peanuts99 3y ago
  It is bloody pricey though. Especially for those without a Swisspass.
  - panick21_ 3y ago
    Cheap if you can not have a car instead. Plus if you vacation here you can get 5 day tickets for example, and explore the whole country, it covers various ships, cable cars and so on. It can be a pretty damn good deal if you take advantage of it. For people living here that don't need a full GA (Swisspass is a car that has lots of functions). There is also Halb-Tax to reduce your price significantly, and if you use it frequently you can get even better deal with Halb-Tax Plus. I think its quite reasonably priced for what you get. But if you are a tourist coming in just buying 1 regular ticket it can be expensive. That said lots of local transport is often included with the hotel.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

bwanab 3y ago

And the best part is how reliable and timely the trains and buses are. As a foreigner living there I commuted by bus into Geneva from a suburb. I don't think my bus was ever more than 1 minute late - and this was in the middle of its run. I hate to compare that to my wife's commute here in Boston....

vasile 3y ago

Thanks for the link, author of the website here. For this particular #swisstrains project I was using derived GTFS dataset form this one https://opentransportdata.swiss/en/dataset/timetable-54-2024-hrdf https://opentransportdata.swiss/en/dataset/timetable-54-2024... - this portal contains public transport data from all swiss transport operators (not only SBB)