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/...
Also then I do fly in long haul, I usually have the choice of a $100 train ride from Zürich or a far cheaper connecting flight to GVA followed by a $30 train. I would much rather take the train from ZRH but it's almost always cheaper to fly.
Switzerland's public transit system is absolutely amazing and I use it anytime I'm in Switzerland — but we have to admit it's one of the most expensive in the world.
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.
To contextualize this a bit: Switzerland has about a tenth of the German population (~8.5M vs ~83M)
GA costs about 50% of a typical monthly Swiss salary.
BC100 costs about 100% of a typical monthly German salary.
Any train, or boat, or tram, or bus,... :)
Source: expat in Zürich and loving it!
For comparison, an adult GA is CHF 3860/yr, so paying for a parking space in Zürich alone puts you 2/3rd of the way to the cost of public transportation, even disregarding costs like insurance, the car itself, registration, vignette, fuel, vehicle maintenance, tyres and parking costs away from home.
A first class Generalabonnement is virtually half the price of that.
So, no. It's certainly not cheaper to drive.
I don't know about prices now, but when I lived there, if you actually needed to travel so much that the GA was worth it over the half-fare card, it definitely was worth it over the car, just on gas prices alone.
So at least comparing to NL, public transport in CH is brutally cheap.
Owning a car is brutally expensive.
You are drunk after a late night. Some sort of public transport will bring you home. You want to do some hiking today? You just go to the nearest train station and decide at the last minute. You want to go to that music festival/concert on the other side of the country? Take the train, have a nap, chitchat or share a meal with your friend for a few hours without the stress of traffic, looking or paying for parking a car at your destination. Train is great, it allows you to move from A to B while basically being at the pub.
You might not need to access your whole country but once you realize you can you use that opportunity and realize your country is much deeper and more interesting than you thought it was.
Mostly, but not necessarily, within regional transportation networks.
As a for example: I pay roughly $1200 for one year of travel within the city of Zurich and the adjacent zone including the airport.
This includes any mode of transportation, except taxis.
A Generalabonnement makes more sense, though, commuting from, say, Zurich to Basel, which is not uncommon.
Edited to add: Regional commuter passes also allow for use of intercity trains, provided that they stop within your zone of validity.
There are yearly abos for specific routes (home to office, typically) that you can choose for 1/2/3/4/5 days a week. But the price usually gets close enough to a full GA that most people in this situation opt for a GA. And many employers cover the 1/2 fare card or GA for their employees.
SBB also (used to?) has a plan where you get a yearly GA and a Tesla or eGolf in every major train station you arrive. It feels magical: get on any train any time and when you arrive there is a car waiting for you. Use it, get back on the train, and there is another car at your destination for you to drive. It isn’t cheap but it’s a pretty neat concept.
Despite some shortcomings in that area, at least in the UK they did keep a common ticketing system with through-ticketing (and integral passenger rights for the whole of your journey) between operators even through the whole of the privatisation saga. In Germany they've mostly ignored that topic and we're mostly only saved by the fact most long distance trains are still operated by DB, and for international journeys it's equally bad, with often no through-tickets available.
It really depends on the line and the company. Virgin from London to Manchester is a reasonably good experience. Anything Northern (as a for example) makes me fume when I even think of taking any of their trains.
Also, prices for spontaneous bookings are outrageous. Even compared to Switzerland.
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...
I think you're citing pretty much a best case there. I just put in the same journey on a morning next week and got £150 each way, which I suspect is still not the worst case.
Before the pandemic, my wife used to pay about £5K/year for a London - Brighton season ticket (a distance of about 50 miles).
Possibly the most infuriating thing is that it's highly unpredictable what's cheap and what's expensive, and long journeys can often be several times the cost of flying. From a social-welfare/cost-of-carbon and oil-crisis perspective, this is nuts, especially when you compare what Germany is doing[1].
[1] https://e360.yale.edu/digest/germany-slashes-summer-train-fa...
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.
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 $500 + petrol. For 2 people getting 2 all inklusive Tickets would still be cheaper.
For anyone planning to spend any amount of time in Switzerland and using PT, it is well worth considering. It does exactly what it says, you only pay half.
So assuming you travel from Zurich to Bern (CHF 51 -> CHF 26, you safe CHF 25), it's worth it after only 8 trips.
However, if you have a monthly fare because you go somewhere regularly, it is still expensive, but much more managable.
The monthly General Abo (unlimited travel for all public transports in Switzerland) is ~340$/month. A parking spot in a city could already be from 80$ to 200$ a month.
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.
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?
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-regi...
Of course, as you say this is about trusting the published statistics from the country itself. In the case of Switzerland, I can say from anecdotal experience that 92% is probably very close to the truth, if that helps?
They're not.
Zurich is 225km from Lausanne and 125km from Bern. Geneva is 254km from Basel, 371km from Lugano, 265km from Lucerne and 277km from Zurich.
I think the opposite of your claim is closer to the truth (though it also has exceptions) than your claim.
The structure would probably need to change for larger countries though, it's true. But you could keep a lot of it; create long distance rails between major cities with stops along these rails for smaller towns to feed into. Some European countries have this type of structure, Italy for example, though it does get very tricky for the very smallest villages
The trains run more often and go to more places than any other place I've ever been to.
Finally, this was the first time in over 20 years of light rail use in Switzerland that I experienced this.
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/150809526141493657... (is an example, the driver spends 3h+ just waiting in the train in case it needs to replace another train)
It does stop at all stops unless it's really late and passengers might as well get out at a stopover station and transfer trains, however if it's sufficiently delayed it may be put on side tracks to let other trains pass to prevent a ripple effect, delaying the train even more to keep the rest of the system working well.
The rail company has a government-imposed punctuality target and their result is used in the calculation of how much money they get from the government the next year, i.e. the usual "once a KPI becomes a target..."
https://company.sbb.ch/de/ueber-die-sbb/verantwortung/die-sb...
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
Isn’t it paid for through ticket fees? 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.
It's a "country" with 630K relatively wealthy, educated, trustworthy people. You can do a lot of things if your "country" meets that criteria.
Few do.
See https://reporting.sbb.ch/en/finance?highlighted=8e222679f50e...
SBB made profit it 2019 for example.
I have never considered the "cost" of a government service to be representative of anything unless an analysis of social benefits is likewise included. For instance the entire discourse around the USPS during the last US presidential election.
Clearly, the train system is net-profitable for the country or they would shut it down, so calling it a "loss" seems inaccurate.
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.
You can subsidize public transit/rail or you can subsidize highways. Which has a better 'ROI' when high oil prices come along? :)
Japan and honk kong: Mostly yes.
Europe: Mostly no but at least a good portion of it is for most.
US: Not even close.
Why are the US regional transit ratios so low? They're taking in real money, yet the costs are 4-5x the revenue.
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.
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-...
They may do this, but whether the number they derive has any kind of meaning or value is another thing altogether.
This is basically impossible to do short of shutting the system down for year to measure the loss (unthinkable).
And even then, you'd have a measurement that doesn't mean anything because it couldn't measure the opportunity costs of the path not taken when the chocie was made initially.
As a matter of fact, I'll go one step further: I don't even think the question makes sense.
Economies are chaotic systems, and even if it is sometimes rather clear after the fact that a specific choice leads to overall positive outcomes (such as choosing to implement a high-quality public transportation system in Switzerland), actually measuring the "gain" is basically impossible. Worse: it's an ill-defined question.
whether the model's assumptions are correct, and whether politicians actually allocate funds based on projected efficacy, are another matter entirely.
That's important to remember when wondering if these ideas could be applied to your country.
The fact is we're rich as anybody here and what we spent our money on is 12-lane freeways.
Another good example would be South Korea. The state invested massively in digital/communications/internet infrastructure fairly early on. The results speak for themselves.
Surely large infrastructure projects hinge on execution as well. You need solid processes and engineering competence. But it's generally something that is not solved though competition, but through collaboration and long-term thinking. In the "planting the trees for the next generation" kind of way.
In some other countries it might be cheaper to build a transit systems using the same ideas.
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.
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).
This is a plan that shows the hubs and their sync time: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a6/Kn...
You'll notice the ebb and flow of passengers if you sit at a hub for half an hour. Most people won't see the ebb because they're on their connecting train.
Just to clarify, not another network, just shift all trains by a random number of minutes.
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.
As far as I know, investments in particular in local and regional trains is heavily driven by cantonal investments. For example ZVV (Zürcher Verkehrsverbund) contracts the S-Bahn network from SBB and finances a good part of its operations. While Zurich's network is therefore quite excelent, I am not sure other cantons invest at similar levels and therefore enjoy a worse experience.
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.
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.
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 ?
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.
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...
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.
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.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTnFpKCAJtE
Very interesting documentation on the process of tunneling.
(Though yes, there's another one soon.)
