For many people, however, mobility is vital to maintaining the quality of life they have become accustomed to. But one man’s curse is another man’s blessing: more traffic means more congestion, accidents, noise pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. The Swiss need greater mobility, but mobility that is socially fair and environmentally compatible, and improves public well-being. 

The modal shift from road to rail has a long tradition in Switzerland and is politically mandated. This was reconfirmed by the Federal Office of Transport (FOT) in 2020 in its core statements serving as the basis of ‘RAIL 2050 Perspective’. To promote travel by rail, it is essential to offer customers simple, efficient, demand-driven and well-connected intermodal mobility. In addition its important core business, both physical and digital connectivity as well as services along the door-to-door travel chain (such as transport hubs) are steadily gaining in importance for SBB and require further targeted development. 

SBB operates one of the busiest rail networks in the world. But trains are used very unevenly: many trains are heavily occupied at peak times, but for the daily average, less than 30% of seats are taken. This is not ideal, neither from a business nor an economic standpoint. In passenger services, SBB is therefore aiming for a ‘twofold shift’: firstly, the shift from private motorised transport to public transport, and secondly, the shift within public transport from heavily to lightly used trains. The latter shift increases efficiency in the public transport system and reduces the number of necessary expansion steps in the long run.