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The integrated timetable of Switzerland

jokteur.com

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Re: The integrated timetable of Switzerland

#51

Post by iggldiggl »

vladharbuz wrote: post #13
tragomaskhalos wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As someone who has lived long-term in both countries, I think that while the Swiss system is absolutely better than the UK system, people in the UK are a bit _too_ self-deprecating about the UK rail system, which is, all things considered, relatively good. Honestly, the biggest pain point in my eyes is that, because of privatisation, it's not all integrated into a single booking/refund/information system, which unfor…

> Honestly, the biggest pain point in my eyes is that, because of privatisation, it's not all integrated into a single booking/refund/information system, which unfortunately does it make it _feel_ quite flakey.

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.

Re: The integrated timetable of Switzerland

#53

Post by Youden »

Stevvo wrote: post #48
CaptainZapp wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 trav…

However you look at, it's brutality expensive. It's nearly always cheaper to drive.

That depends on a lot of factors. If you live in or around Zürich for example, the median price just to rent a parking space is CHF 200/month, or CHF 2400/yr.

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.

Re: The integrated timetable of Switzerland

#54

Post by londons_explore »

mfsch wrote: post #10

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. htt…

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.

Re: The integrated timetable of Switzerland

#55

Post by phaer »

tauchunfall wrote: post #27
CaptainZapp wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 trav…

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 d…

> 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)

Re: The integrated timetable of Switzerland

#56

Post by pera »

CaptainZapp wrote: post #36
pera wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any alternative to this? Because that's about 4 times the price of the normal monthly local bus pass in the US and the UK. Most people don't need to travel around the country, they just need to commute to their jobs.

Yes, there are. 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…

ah cool that sounds very reasonable then

Re: The integrated timetable of Switzerland

#57

Post by jemen »

michaelscott wrote: post #22
belter wrote: post #12

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". F…

The point is that Switzerland maintains this level of punctuality in addition to connecting the entire country, down to the village. That "down to the village" bit is the part that very few other public transport systems in the world have managed to get right, including those alternatives in your list. Of course, as you say this is about trusting the published statistics from the country itself. In the case of Switze…

Because they way Switzerland is structured both in terms of administration and geography I don't think that a village in Switzerland is equivalent to a village in most other countries. Presumably the canton system results in more smaller cities and large villages, and the terrain means they are in a limited number of places. The largest cities are all within 100 km of each other. While a single trip in a large country can be longer than the entire length of Switzerland. It will of course be easier to match a timetable with short predictable distances at lower speeds.

Re: The integrated timetable of Switzerland

#58

Post by CaptainZapp »

Stevvo wrote: post #48
CaptainZapp wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 trav…

However you look at, it's brutality expensive. It's nearly always cheaper to drive.

Maintaing a car (bottom line) in Switzerland hits you with a minimum of 800 Franks a month, or almost 10'000 Franks a year.

A first class Generalabonnement is virtually half the price of that.

So, no. It's certainly not cheaper to drive.

Re: The integrated timetable of Switzerland

#59

Post by dirkf »

bigDinosaur wrote: post #35
belter wrote: post #12

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". F…

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!

In my European country if a train was running very late they could turn around the train some stops earlier, thereby not servicing the stations further down the track. Since the train would never arrive there it implied it also couldn't be late and thus it would not be counted in the statistics as such.

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..."

Re: The integrated timetable of Switzerland

#60

Post by DeathArrow »

archerx wrote: post #37
jokteur wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 train…

Have you tried to complain?
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