I’m from the US and i’ve lived in Switzerland for almost 3 years now. As an American my standard of public transport is exceptionally low, so my perception of Swiss transport is that it’s incredible. Even compared to other countries in Europe it seems to be much better, especially given that trains and buses go even to the most remote places a few times per day.

I recently took (almost) Switzerland’s longest train journey from Poschiavo to a small town in VD and by Swiss standards it was pretty chaotic, with a few delays including one seemingly just because it was raining. I made a vlog about it if anyone’s interested: [https://youtu.be/uF20XirN-fo](https://youtu.be/uF20XirN-fo).

But I wanted to ask the Swiss themselves (and other expats) how they perceive the SBB/CFF/FFS? I see plenty of memes about delays but on a day to day level, are you satisfied with the transport? What does it do better than other places and where could it improve?

8 comments

  1. There was recently a post, on which I made a comment, summing up (as someone using the public transportation system for 15+ years).

    My three main points of critique were:

    * The prices being too high (including getting rid of the Student GA during COVID)
    * Allotment of 1st and 2nd class coaches. Most often there are enough places to sit but not of the correct class (always way too many first class seats, during critical times, not enough 2nd class seats)
    * Communication and amends. This point mostly relates to greater delays where people don’t get any information AND not giving the customer the feeling that there will be consequences to massive delays. E.g. there have been times where my train Bern-Olten has been delayed for more than an hour (with little to no communication, the SBB personell checking the same app we have, so really no help) and when the people ultimately got to go where they want, there is nothing done about the massive inconvenience they just experienced due to errors on the side of SBB as well as no sign that there will be improvements. (Funny enough, my friends and I, all frequent passengers of SBB, often joke about the SBB in winter when they **each year** get surprised by snow.)

    Of course, there are many, many great things to be said about SBB like

    * Doing great progress on making public transportation more accessible for people with disabilities (notably people with restricted mobility and people having problems with their eye-sight.)
    * Upgrading their stations (no matter how small) to have WIFI that is, AFAIK, freely accessible.
    * Retaining options for older / non digitally connected to get a ticket.

  5. The real miracle and advantage is the synchronisation of the different vehicles, trains, buses, Postbus, Trams, etc. Works annoy of every part comes one time, what it does, most of the time.

    You can plan a journey with several changes of the vehicles, and you do not have to wait more than 15 minutes while changing (typical is Easter 5 to 10 mins.

  6. Zurich (VBZ) was VERY good before the pandemic.
    Now they are, in my opinion, getting into Deutsche Bahn territory…
    “Oh, we don’t have enough drivers, your line gets cancelled”, oh it is rainy outside, our drivers have a cough, no more Tram/Bus every 7 minutes, it is “somewhat about 12” now… For sure a first world problem, but if you were accustomed to the constantly running transportation a change it is somewhat strange

  7. Compared to Japan, where I currently live, and which is likely the gold standard in public transportation, Switzerland is not far behind, except for their excruciatingly eye-watering pricing. Where it lacks, is likely a little cleanliness and other behavioural issues of inconsiderate passengers; but that’s not SBB’s fault.

  8. Hold on .. The longest train journey in Switzerland .. But it’s five trains, so it’s kinda five shorter journeys?

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