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Why is the Swiss public transport system so much better than the UK's?

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Rab Smith

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My two bobs worth, I understand that Swiss rail could only operate as it does with a huge public subsidy but getting a late train from Luzern to Zurich, the train was full to the brim with late teen/20 somethings heading into town for a night out. When I checked the app later, there were trains heading back to Luzern at 2+ in the morning.
Public transport is as it says, transporting public.
 
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Austriantrain

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My two bobs worth, I understand that Swiss rail could only operate as it does with a huge public subsidy but getting a late train from Luzern to Zurich, the train was full to the brim with late teen/20 somethings heading into town for a night out. When I checked the app later, there were trains heading back to Luzern at 2+ in the morning.
Public transport is as it says, transporting public.

Re subsidy: It depends.

Switzerland invests a lot of money into rail infrastructure, more than almost any other country in Europe.

„Long“-distance traffic (ie IC, IR trains) is unsubsidized. The „golden triangle“ Zurich - Berne - Basel generates so much money that SBB can (and has to) cross-subsidize the rest of its services.

Regional traffic, as anywhere else, of course has public sector contracts where (mostly) the cantons pay for certain service levels.

Nothing to apologise for. It would be dull if we all agreed with each other about everything.

Thanks. The trains I use to commute (around Vienna!) have destinations such as Munich, Zurich, Frankfurt, Dortmund or Budapest, so you can see where I come from… nothing special there.
 
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dutchflyer

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Again: also the heavy goods traffic-and this is also enforced to go on the rails and not on the roads for much of transit DE-IT, also subsidizes a lot of the passenger trains. Looking in % -and probably also as the fares as such are quite high-there is very little subsidy. The Swiss are very well known for their careful approach to all things moneywise.
For juniors there is the ´Gleis 7´ cheap evening season ticket-valid, you guessed it, from 7 PM=19.00. In the very wide Zürich area is a far stretching night bus/train network in weekends. This is also intended to keep those youth away from cars/crashes/drunk driving etc.
Not yet mentioned is: The most impressive feature of what about any outsider surprises and enjoys: the clockwork orange style integrated and interconnecting network of all means of transport: the TaktFahrplan. Carefully planned non-overlap between train and bus. Which always irritates most of you Brits-as ´people are forced to change for the last part to train, whereas bus could have run on into town´.
I would like to add: there is not really enforced contracting out and staff gets a good pay and is generally proud on their job-its secure and all those minor local lines have strong support from the regions. Not that ´this year comp. A and next B and then it goes broke as it offered too low and we get C´
 

yorkie

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There are a lot of things we could learn from the Swiss public transport system but the 'powers that be' wouldn't be interested in implementing some of them.
To be honest no matter how good the Swiss system is, I don't want to learn from them.
Hopefully you're not in a role where that would be relevant ;)
The reason is because Switzerland is an expensive country to begin with! I definitely don't want to level up our cost of living to the Swiss level!
Public transport in Switzerland is actually extremely good value, and rather cheap, when compared to the salary of an average worker.
 

blackfive460

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Regarding connecting services, remember it's not just trains.
I've been impressed with the way buses connect at stations giving a proper integrated public transport service which is not something that we seem able to do here in the UK.
There's a particular journey I make fairly frequently where I get off in a small town where the train arrives roughly every two hours and there's a bus every two hours taking 30 minutes to get me to my final destination. The bus leaves 15 minutes BEFORE the train arrives. This means that the journey, with 4 changes, takes about 7 hours. By car it takes 2½ hours.
Do I wish I had a car and a license to drive one?
 

zwk500

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Regarding connecting services, remember it's not just trains.
I've been impressed with the way buses connect at stations giving a proper integrated public transport service which is not something that we seem able to do here in the UK.
This is something we are noticeably poor on in the UK
There's a particular journey I make fairly frequently where I get off in a small town where the train arrives roughly every two hours and there's a bus every two hours taking 30 minutes to get me to my final destination. The bus leaves 15 minutes BEFORE the train arrives. This means that the journey, with 4 changes, takes about 7 hours. By car it takes 2½ hours.
Do I wish I had a car and a license to drive one?
However, in this example, arriving 15 minutes before the next train departs is quite a safe connection. It would depend on what the more important destination was.
 

alex397

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I've been impressed with the way buses connect at stations giving a proper integrated public transport service which is not something that we seem able to do here in the UK.
There's a particular journey I make fairly frequently where I get off in a small town where the train arrives roughly every two hours and there's a bus every two hours taking 30 minutes to get me to my final destination. The bus leaves 15 minutes BEFORE the train arrives
There are some good things about the UK’s public transport, but this is certainly one of our major failings.
Not just the poor connections, such as the one you describe, but also the lack of information. And also, completely out of date information which I think can be even worse than having none. For example, at a few Southeastern stations there are bus maps about 10 years out of date (such as Sittingbourne and Broadstairs) - I’ve contacted Southeastern and Kent County Council about this plenty of times, but each say it’s the other organisation’s responsibility.

Many countries on the continent (certainly not all) do this really well. Good signs and maps of where to get the bus, and buses timed to meet train connections. There are examples in the UK where buses are timed for the trains, but this is far from universal.
 

miklcct

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There are examples in the UK where buses are timed for the trains, but this is far from universal.
Those routes operated by smaller operators and cater for visitors generally do that, such as Cuckmere Buses 47.

However, roadwork may cause a route which is timetabled to connect to the train misses the connection.
 

Bletchleyite

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This is something we are noticeably poor on in the UK

However, in this example, arriving 15 minutes before the next train departs is quite a safe connection. It would depend on what the more important destination was.

They aren't to be fair perfect in CH either, buses do sometimes run on "odd" non Takt schedules due to traffic etc. But just how bad they are in e.g. Cornwall (where you have a huge non car owning tourist market, made up primarily of young Londoners) would be laughable to a Swiss person.
 

stuu

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Regarding connecting services, remember it's not just trains.
I've been impressed with the way buses connect at stations giving a proper integrated public transport service which is not something that we seem able to do here in the UK.
There's a particular journey I make fairly frequently where I get off in a small town where the train arrives roughly every two hours and there's a bus every two hours taking 30 minutes to get me to my final destination. The bus leaves 15 minutes BEFORE the train arrives. This means that the journey, with 4 changes, takes about 7 hours. By car it takes 2½ hours.
Do I wish I had a car and a license to drive one?
Does the bus come from somewhere else first? And is the station the end of the line or does it go on to somewhere bigger?
 

johncrossley

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Regarding connecting services, remember it's not just trains.
I've been impressed with the way buses connect at stations giving a proper integrated public transport service which is not something that we seem able to do here in the UK.
There's a particular journey I make fairly frequently where I get off in a small town where the train arrives roughly every two hours and there's a bus every two hours taking 30 minutes to get me to my final destination. The bus leaves 15 minutes BEFORE the train arrives. This means that the journey, with 4 changes, takes about 7 hours. By car it takes 2½ hours.
Do I wish I had a car and a license to drive one?

Many people on the Buses section of this forum and other British enthusiast forums are often suspicious of bus/train connections. As mentioned by @dutchflyer earlier, they would prefer a direct bus instead of having to change to a train. Or they may prefer a more frequent bus that runs at independent times to the train compared to a less frequent bus that connects with trains. Connecting with trains often means long stand times and therefore resources which they would prefer to be spent on more buses.
 

DanielB

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They aren't to be fair perfect in CH either, buses do sometimes run on "odd" non Takt schedules due to traffic etc. But just how bad they are in e.g. Cornwall (where you have a huge non car owning tourist market, made up primarily of young Londoners) would be laughable to a Swiss person.
It's just dependent on where in Switzerland you are obviously. Along one of the Rhatische Bahn routes I noticed a station where buses where obviously waiting for the train to arrive, which makes sense with a not very frequent train connecting with a not very frequent bus.
On the contrary, arriving at Basel SBB the connection onto the tram to my hotel sometimes was very quick and sometimes involved a lengthy wait. Obviously at such locations there are so many trains and trams/buses that timing perfect connections is near to impossible. Something like that you'll see at other stations around Europe as well.

Connecting with trains often means long stand times and therefore resources which they would prefer to be spent on more buses.
Which is of course a very generic standpoint. The actual situation is very dependent on the exact connections offered and the timetables of both buses and trains.
 

blackfive460

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However, in this example, arriving 15 minutes before the next train departs is quite a safe connection. It would depend on what the more important destination was.
A good point but not the case here since more people are travelling to the town in question than to it. It's simply that the bus company and the local authority don't care!
 

RT4038

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Many people on the Buses section of this forum and other British enthusiast forums are often suspicious of bus/train connections. As mentioned by @dutchflyer earlier, they would prefer a direct bus instead of having to change to a train. Or they may prefer a more frequent bus that runs at independent times to the train compared to a less frequent bus that connects with trains. Connecting with trains often means long stand times and therefore resources which they would prefer to be spent on more buses.
To be comprehensive, mention also needs to be made of the additional bus time taken up in extending or diverting bus services via Railway Stations, which again means less frequent bus services or more buses to run the same level of service.

A good point but not the case here since more people are travelling to the town in question than to it. It's simply that the bus company and the local authority don't care!
Maybe if you reveal the particular example you are referring to then a more informed reply can be given?
 

miklcct

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There are a lot of things we could learn from the Swiss public transport system but the 'powers that be' wouldn't be interested in implementing some of them.

Hopefully you're not in a role where that would be relevant ;)

Public transport in Switzerland is actually extremely good value, and rather cheap, when compared to the salary of an average worker.
If copying the Swiss system means the fare is increased by 30%, I'd rather not do that. Similarly if it is tax-funded as well as the UK is a high-tax country (compared to Gibraltar, Channel Islands, Hong Kong, Singapore, or some eastern EU countries like Bulgaria and Estonia).

Copying a better system from a low-tax and low-fare country is the way to go.


Many people on the Buses section of this forum and other British enthusiast forums are often suspicious of bus/train connections. As mentioned by @dutchflyer earlier, they would prefer a direct bus instead of having to change to a train. Or they may prefer a more frequent bus that runs at independent times to the train compared to a less frequent bus that connects with trains. Connecting with trains often means long stand times and therefore resources which they would prefer to be spent on more buses.
A change is never attractive when the headway is scarce. Only when the frequency is under 10-15 minutes a change is not a huge inconvenience.

For night buses, it is feasible to provide timed connections when one will wait for the other (e.g. to wait up for 5 minutes for the other bus to arrive), but it's impractical for this to be extended to daytime services due to the huge amount of traffic.

If the "connection" means an extra bus I'd rather use that extra bus to provide a direct service, or to provide a more frequent service.


It's just dependent on where in Switzerland you are obviously. Along one of the Rhatische Bahn routes I noticed a station where buses where obviously waiting for the train to arrive, which makes sense with a not very frequent train connecting with a not very frequent bus.
On the contrary, arriving at Basel SBB the connection onto the tram to my hotel sometimes was very quick and sometimes involved a lengthy wait. Obviously at such locations there are so many trains and trams/buses that timing perfect connections is near to impossible. Something like that you'll see at other stations around Europe as well.


Which is of course a very generic standpoint. The actual situation is very dependent on the exact connections offered and the timetables of both buses and trains.
When there is a network of infrequent routes, it's impossible to time every connection without greatly extending journey times. Therefore, under the same resource allocation, I'd rather to run every route as frequent as possible instead of trying to arrange connections.

A hub-and-spoke model will do, but it will result in unattractive orbital journeys, and if the radial routes are timed to each other, the orbital route will not fit into them resulting in an equally-unattractive journey is a change between a radial and the orbital is required.
 

Austriantrain

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If copying the Swiss system means the fare is increased by 30%, I'd rather not do that. Similarly if it is tax-funded as well as the UK is a high-tax country (compared to Gibraltar, Channel Islands, Hong Kong, Singapore, or some eastern EU countries like Bulgaria and Estonia).

Copying a better system from a low-tax and low-fare country is the way to go.



A change is never attractive when the headway is scarce. Only when the frequency is under 10-15 minutes a change is not a huge inconvenience.

For night buses, it is feasible to provide timed connections when one will wait for the other (e.g. to wait up for 5 minutes for the other bus to arrive), but it's impractical for this to be extended to daytime services due to the huge amount of traffic.

If the "connection" means an extra bus I'd rather use that extra bus to provide a direct service, or to provide a more frequent service.



When there is a network of infrequent routes, it's impossible to time every connection without greatly extending journey times. Therefore, under the same resource allocation, I'd rather to run every route as frequent as possible instead of trying to arrange connections.

A hub-and-spoke model will do, but it will result in unattractive orbital journeys, and if the radial routes are timed to each other, the orbital route will not fit into them resulting in an equally-unattractive journey is a change between a radial and the orbital is required.

Switzerland is actually one of the lowest taxed countries in the developed world. And, as has been pointed out before, measured against income, public transport is not expensive for Swiss people (yearly „all public transport“ rover for 3.330£…).
 

zwk500

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If copying the Swiss system means the fare is increased by 30%, I'd rather not do that. Similarly if it is tax-funded as well as the UK is a high-tax country (compared to Gibraltar, Channel Islands, Hong Kong, Singapore, or some eastern EU countries like Bulgaria and Estonia).
None of your examples are in any way comparable to the UK for a variety of reasons: Gibraltar is a UK Overseas Territory consisting of a small town. The Channel Islands are Crown Dependencies (complicated relationship with the UK but not Sovereign independent territories) consisting of some large villages off the coast of France. Hong Kong and Singapore are Asian Megacities, City-States (Hong Kong sort of is-and-isn't a City State) covering a small area with a very high density population and former Eastern Bloc countries are at a totally different level of economic development, with a tax regime, economic prosperity and traffic demand to that of the UKs.
Copying a better system from a low-tax and low-fare country is the way to go.
Suggest a Country with comparable population distribution, economic development and travel demand that is low-tax and low-fare compared to the UK. Ideally with a comparison of subsidy required.
 

tomuk

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None of your examples are in any way comparable to the UK for a variety of reasons: Gibraltar is a UK Overseas Territory consisting of a small town. The Channel Islands are Crown Dependencies (complicated relationship with the UK but not Sovereign independent territories) consisting of some large villages off the coast of France. Hong Kong and Singapore are Asian Megacities, City-States (Hong Kong sort of is-and-isn't a City State) covering a small area with a very high density population and former Eastern Bloc countries are at a totally different level of economic development, with a tax regime, economic prosperity and traffic demand to that of the UKs.
The same could be said of the premise of this whole thread. Is it correct to compare UK and Switzerland due to there large difference in size, population, rail network size and even GDP per capita.
 

zwk500

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The same could be said of the premise of this whole thread. Is it correct to compare UK and Switzerland due to there large difference in size, population, rail network size and even GDP per capita.
It's a far, far closer comparison. Both are highly developed economies with a range of cities mixed with rural towns and villages. Both have travel demand mixtures or commuters, business travel, longer-distance freight and leisure. You will be very lucky to find 2 exact parallels between countries in the world, but you will get a much more sensible set of observations in comparing the UK to Switzerland or Belgium than you would by comparing it to Jersey or Singapore.
 

Bletchleyite

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Switzerland is actually one of the lowest taxed countries in the developed world. And, as has been pointed out before, measured against income, public transport is not expensive for Swiss people (yearly „all public transport“ rover for 3.330£…).

Though that price isn't comparable with the whole UK. It would be more like such a pass for the South East costing that. Which, if it existed, would probably be more like twice that, to be fair.

As for Swiss tax I think it isn't quite that simple, though I did work it out for myself when offered a relocation a while back rather than a weekly commute and I found the take overall on my salary including mandatory health insurance would be almost exactly the same as my UK income tax and NI are.
 

tomuk

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It's a far, far closer comparison. Both are highly developed economies with a range of cities mixed with rural towns and villages. Both have travel demand mixtures or commuters, business travel, longer-distance freight and leisure. You will be very lucky to find 2 exact parallels between countries in the world, but you will get a much more sensible set of observations in comparing the UK to Switzerland or Belgium than you would by comparing it to Jersey or Singapore.
I wasn't suggesting comparing the UK with Singapore or Jersey was valid but I don't necessarily agree that comparing the UK and Switzerland is valid either. UK has 8 times the population and is 6 times the size.
 

Bletchleyite

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It's a far, far closer comparison. Both are highly developed economies with a range of cities mixed with rural towns and villages. Both have travel demand mixtures or commuters, business travel, longer-distance freight and leisure. You will be very lucky to find 2 exact parallels between countries in the world, but you will get a much more sensible set of observations in comparing the UK to Switzerland or Belgium than you would by comparing it to Jersey or Singapore.

The best comparison between the UK and another European country is probably Germany. However, even that isn't quite the same because it's not single-city-centric. Like our language, we would probably be looking at a hybrid of France (a large capital-centric country) and Germany (a more similar economy).

Switzerland is very small (as are Belgium and the Netherlands) and so they are better compared with UK regions (or maybe Wales) than the whole thing.
 

dm1

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If copying the Swiss system means the fare is increased by 30%, I'd rather not do that. Similarly if it is tax-funded as well as the UK is a high-tax country (compared to Gibraltar, Channel Islands, Hong Kong, Singapore, or some eastern EU countries like Bulgaria and Estonia).

Copying a better system from a low-tax and low-fare country is the way to go.
A public transport system is not something you can copy and paste from one country to another and expect it to work. That is a strawman at best and also comes across rather xenophobic.

What you can do is look at other public transport systems around the world, analyse their strengths and weaknesses and think about whether any lessons can be learnt from these countries and applied to your own system, as appropriate.

I think it's more or less undeniable that GB could learn a lot from Switzerland, as I have outlined in earlier posts in this thread. It is also less a question of taxes, fares, or subsides, but more a question of ideology. That does not depend directly on the size of a country either - some of Switzerland's biggest strengths are in its regional and local transport, where the size of the country as a whole is more or less irrelevant.
 

Bletchleyite

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I wasn't suggesting comparing the UK with Singapore or Jersey was valid but I don't necessarily agree that comparing the UK and Switzerland is valid either. UK has 8 times the population and is 6 times the size.

If you wanted a UK comparison for Switzerland it is probably "the North", though Switzerland is much richer.

I think it's more or less undeniable that GB could learn a lot from Switzerland, as I have outlined in earlier posts in this thread. It is also less a question of taxes, fares, or subsides, but more a question of ideology. That does not depend directly on the size of a country either - some of Switzerland's biggest strengths are in its regional and local transport, where the size of the country as a whole is more or less irrelevant.

True. I am as people are well aware a big advocate for fully integrated urban transport systems, and how well you do one of those doesn't vary based on whether you've got one big city or 20 odd.

With regard to long distance travel (nothing in Switzerland is that long distance, it is more like TPE) there are only really 2 ways of doing it - Germany/UK's mostly walk up approach and the (more common) Romance airline like approach.
 

Sm5

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Though that price isn't comparable with the whole UK. It would be more like such a pass for the South East costing that. Which, if it existed, would probably be more like twice that, to be fair.

As for Swiss tax I think it isn't quite that simple, though I did work it out for myself when offered a relocation a while back rather than a weekly commute and I found the take overall on my salary including mandatory health insurance would be almost exactly the same as my UK income tax and NI are.
The difference between fighting two world wars, and staying neutral.
 

tomuk

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The difference between fighting two world wars, and staying neutral.
Quite the enter Swiss defence budget is 5.4Bn we are just spending the same on just 600 Ajax armoured vehicles. Frigates and Submarines are at least a billion a piece.
 

Austriantrain

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As for Swiss tax I think it isn't quite that simple, though I did work it out for myself when offered a relocation a while back rather than a weekly commute and I found the take overall on my salary including mandatory health insurance would be almost exactly the same as my UK income tax and NI are.

From what I know, Switzerland and the UK have quite comparable tax levels indeed, and they are considerably lower than in most of the rest of Western Europe.

Comparing these two countries to tax havens or city-states (which don’t have to provide infrastructure in, say, the Hebdrides or some far-flung Alpine valley) will never make any sense.
 

miklcct

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and they are considerably lower than in most of the rest of Western Europe.
Eastern Europe has considerably lower tax compared to Western Europe as well, and they are not tax havens. We should compare to them to see if their public transport systems are better than us.
 

The exile

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Eastern Europe has considerably lower tax compared to Western Europe as well, and they are not tax havens. We should compare to them to see if their public transport systems are better than us.
While doing the comparison it’s probably also worth comparing the last 80 years’ worth of history - not to mention the level of financial support coming from external bodies (principally the EU).
 

Austriantrain

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While doing the comparison it’s probably also worth comparing the last 80 years’ worth of history - not to mention the level of financial support coming from external bodies (principally the EU).

If we go down that road, it is also worth mentioning that most tax receipts don’t go towards public transport. So we would have to take into account social services, education, pensions, health etc.

The point I was trying to make is that the excellence of Swiss public transport (and I am convinced it is the best in Europe and most likely worldwide - Japan might be a second contender - at a country level) doesn’t go together with particularly high taxation. That is still halfway on thread… but enough said on the topic from my side.
 
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