Why Swiss Trains are the Best in Europe
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- Опубліковано 17 лип 2022
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I live in the Netherlands, where we have some pretty great trains. But there's a country in Europe that does trains better. Much better, in fact.
Switzerland has some of the best trains in the entire world - second, perhaps, only to Japan. What makes these trains so good? And what is it like to actually ride them?
The Slowest Express Train in the World - The Glacier Express
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References and Additional Reading
The integrated timetable of Switzerland
www.jokteur.com/a/integrated-...
Watching the Swiss: A network approach to rural and exurban public transport
www.sciencedirect.com/science...
Live map of the Swiss Railways Network
maps.vasile.ch/transit-sbb/
Trafimage - Live Swiss Railway Punctuality
maps.trafimage.ch/ch.sbb.netz...
How Punctual is SBB?
company.sbb.ch/en/the-company...
SBB Facts and Figures - Punctuality
reporting.sbb.ch/punctuality
Are Swiss trains becoming less punctual, pricier and more dangerous?
www.swissinfo.ch/eng/public-t...
This video contains images and video licensed from Getty Images.
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as a swiss person: last week my train was delayed for 19 seconds and i haven't recovered from that eversince
Hah! I literally lol'd.
Cries in South African
Oh.. you poor soul! You must be scarred for life!😄
I cant imagine what you mustve gone through. Im so sorry for your loss. I offer my deepest condiments
Never use France trains you'd have a panick attack
"A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It's where the rich use public transportation." I love that quote.
From the mayor of Bagota.
Good luck selling this point of view in the US. We sold our souls to Henry Ford and Alfred P. Sloan long ago. One of the European car makers uses the slogan "You are what you drive." Motor vehicle advertising, much of it with a strong element of fantasy, is a major source of revenue for the TV and radio industries.
That's brilliant.
@@ourcolonel1685 Who was recently elected president of Colombia.
Did you mean Bogotá?
I've been travelling with a Swiss train a few weeks ago, and the train service was suddenly interrupted because of a power outage in the next valley. The conductor apologized and told us to wait for the replacement bus at the next station, but couldn't tell us when it would arrive. The bus was there within a few minutes (somewhere in a tiny village in the mountains), drove us to the next station behind the interruption, where another train was waiting for us to continue the journey. And what can I say, we even arrived 1 minute ahead of schedule at my final destination.
Had this happened to me in my home country Germany, I'd probably still be waiting for that replacement bus.
I remember waiting for the bus for 4 hours, than going home by a Fahrgemeinschaft.
was that in the canton zurich i remember that the same thing happened to me
@@mikumin727 No, it was on the way from Interlaken to Luzern, probably somewhere in Obwalden.
Switzerland. The only country that is more efficient than Germany.
I think the only country in the world that could ever compare to Switzerland when it comes to train efficiency would be Japan.
Leider, Sie haben Recht!
Can we take a minute to appreciate the people who created an algorithm to synchronize trains over a whole country on a dense network often sharing single rails? Just…. Wow
It just so happens that the major railway connection between the "big" cities take about an hour. Bern-Zurich, Bern-Basel, Basel-Zurich. This makes clock time schedules much easier. And no, single rail tracks are not the norm.
I went to a Swiss school in Barcelona. Once we were visiting the LHC in the CERN in Geneve. We were a group of about 20 people with group reservation and at every connection they put a comment on the station screens "Swiss school Barelona here please". That is the level.
Wow. That is incredible! I've never heard of that before. 😮
Also, CERN is amazing. I went during one of their open days in 2008. I stayed in Geneva and was able to easily take the tram there (of course 😉).
@@NotJustBikes I’m from Belgium, I’ve gotta say whenever we would do school trips by train, a carriage would be reserved for our school and on the platform we would be instructed to our carriage, by personnel, although the NMBS/SNCB has a lot to improve, I was always impressed when we where in a big group, although we would usually have to wait a long time for connections
Went from germany to switzerland with the school. Germany: reservation only partially possible, rather unorganized and right next to other passengers. Switzerland: literally a whole carriage just for us. On the way back we shared it with another school class. Thanks to that we didnt disturb anybody.
We went to a festival in Switzerland, in a city of 25000. The festival had a capacity of 35000.
Before the festival, there were direct trains from Zurich to that city every 20 minutes, with shuttle buses from the train station to the concert grounds.
After the festival, there were direct trains from the city to pretty much every big city in the country, and buses every 20-30 seconds (yes, seconds) going from the concert to the train station, so you can catch them on time.
i wonder if they do that for everyonenor just us southern europeans
Notice how the smaller towns and villages aren't shabby and broke because people can get to them and don't need a car to get around.
also they earn decent wages. These houses cost 1 mio. upward. But then, they are really worth that money.
Guess they don't have to spend all their budget subsidizing road wear.
Or in other words, it's possible to live in the village and work in the city, bringing that city wage back to the village.
good observation.. Also I think the Swiss are actually richer per capita than the Americans.
@@AllUpOns correct. Also meaning that cost diffenrece aren't that big between urban and rural.
Most rural regions in Switzerland would still count as urban in the US due to their proximity to cities/ goods and services.
Keep in mind, you can drive through Switzerland in 3 hours N-S
or 4 hours E-W. We got 8 milion inhabitants. But are under the top economic countries due to our stability politically and economically. (Economic freedom score).
As a Swiss I just realized that public transport is sometimes that I took for granted
It’s insane how our country is able to make all of the public transport work this well
Especially in such a mountainous country. ;)
May I ask how much it would cost per month to use the trains like a local vs. the price of an unlimited pass?
@@krispy777 For my local area a 1 month libero pass would cost CHF 73.00 (2nd class), meaning you're able to take the bus. A "normal" (there are special passes for children, ppl under 25, seniors, ppl with disabilities, families etc.) unlimited pass would cost you CHF 3'860.00 per year (2nd class), therefore about CHF 322.00 per month, meaning you can ride all busses, trains, trams and many ships in Switzerland plus there can be a discount if you want to take a cable car (to go to the mountains).👍🏻
I live in Switzerland and yesterday I needed to get home from Locarno. One train was cancelled because of a technical issue on the overhead line (they actually informed you about that in the app), so I had to get another train, which was delayed only so that we could use it instead of the cancelled one. THEN they sent around personnel to personally ask EVERY passenger in a completely filled train in a very friendly manner which connection they wanted to use afterwards so they could delay that connection only for them. That plus a couple personal apologies coming through loudspeakers and information about the connections afterwards. They handled it so well and you felt actually taken care of because they will be giving you what you paid for. Thanks, SBB.
That would never happen in the Netherlands!! The NS (Dutch equivalent of SBB) would never delay your connection train for you. You just need to wait for the next train. And no apologies through the speakers.
Read your contribution to this thread and all I can say is "WOW!"
That is indeed amazing service, especially when compared to the current situation of dirty trains, cancellations, strikes and threat of more strikes in the UK . To say I'm envious is not even close...
@@ShengProductions Hi - I've often seen it happen in NL for last trains of the day (eg Leeuwarden overstap naar Arriva)
English guy in NL. I dunno if they still pay for Taxis in place of missed connections. I had tat one time years ago.
An amazing story. Science fiction in the United States.
@@andrewdu4671 they do, was in a train that hit a deer and got stopped for an hour, and someone due to that missed the last train to the North, so the conductor called someone and a taxi appeared at the normal change location, haven’t had to use it myself though
This channel has completely radicalized me on infrastructure and public transit. I have become a nuisance to my friends and family who cannot hold a conversation with me for 5 minutes without me bringing up stroads or bike paths (not just lanes right next to loud cars with no barrier!) or train lines.
Thank you for opening my eyes to what civilization is supposed to look like. I will continue to spread the gospel and hope to open more eyes to the truth.
Good to hear! We need more people to take the orange pill: ua-cam.com/video/OQE_5MFCekg/v-deo.html
@@NotJustBikes Me too and I moved to Europe four years ago from the US and found it hard to explain to friends and family why European cities and lifestyle is better. Now I just send a link to this channel.
My city is called "the city of bikes", only because lots os streets have bicicle lanes that are barely separated from the strouds, and horrible public transportation.
That quote from the mayor of Bogota really hits home.
Yes, this is also the case for me. All I want to talk about is this. It’s plaguing my relationships. How do I get other people to care? What videos do I show them? No one ever seems to bite.
@@NotJustBikes 🎯
Delays in Swiss trains are frequently rooted in delays abroad. To minimize this effect, the Swiss railway company will sometimes declare a train "canceled" while it is still approaching from Germany and provide its own replacement train for the Swiss part of that journey - which often arrives with minimal delay.
As someone who frequently takes German trains, I wholeheartedly believe that.
Austria does this too for trains from the Balkans and the like. I sometimes take the train from Croatia to Germany and Austria I've been left behind in Villach a couple times already.
@@2712animefreak Croatian trains are often laughed at in Croatia, delays of over an hour are normal here
@@anteveic327 USA trains: hold my beer
While i will not defend the "punctuality" of german railways, there is some truth to the fact that longer train connections "naturally" have more delay. And that delay becomes "naturally" more pronounced towards the end of a trainline. So a "20 stop before swiss train" with 3 minutes of delay every other station has accumulated 30 minutes delay
I live in the US. I am a five minute walk from the train station-- except it's been closed for decades. The town, never the less, celebrates its train history by encouraging businesses to decorate their mailboxes like train cars, because the train station literally made this town (it's closed now, did I mention that?). If I want to catch a passenger train, I have to drive 30 minutes to a very sketchy dangerous switching yard where I can go south at 6am, or north at 11:30 pm.
The train station a five minute walk from me is now on the historic registry and converted to boutique shops.
😢
:(
Don't make your heart attached to this temporary world
I'm swiss and I can say, it's very easy to forget how good we have it! After being used to the punctuality and the quick connections, traveling in other countries feels very rough
Oh well Im sure you can wipe your tears away with all your 1000 franc bills
Swiss would struggle the most in America and the have no struggle in Japan. Gosh I hate American transit system and I love Swiss trains, tram, and buses and oh you can even take some Deutsche Bahn and SNCF train there too. There was ICE 2 at Interlaken Ost and I did be able to use it to go to Zurich so they did not just take you to Germany. Rhätische Bahn is absolutely beautiful for a smaller railway than SBB I super in love with it Bernina Express is absolutely beautiful. Well actually SBB train is just as beautiful I can’t take my eye off the RE 420 (RE 4/4 II) locomotive they look so beautiful and well taking care of that they still in use today while 2000 Acela Express is retiring after 22 years of use.
@@alpzepta I dont think anyone is gonna read all that but yeah swiss transit is better than american transit by far
We are spoiled but I think there is something to the fact that Swiss people will still complain when the train is just a minute late. It forces all of us to try to do better and we do get better. In some countries there is a complacency that it's as good as it can be, or we are the best there is nothing better. Swiss people are proud of their achievements but are never satisfied and believe they can do even better.
@@alpzepta Yep I remember Japan is known for punctuality too? 1 exception I faced was a 5min delay due to train congestion - there's only 1 platform allocated to a shuttle service at a interchange station, so a train headed to that station had to wait for the train ahead, which was still turning around at that platform, to depart 1st
As a Swiss, I have to say that there is one huge problem with the Swiss transit network. Whenever I am travelling outside of Switzerland, I get annoyed at the local public transport system for not meeting my expectations (being it not being on time, not being clean, or just having a bad app).
The Virgin DB vs the Chad SBB
Hah. Yep, that's exactly what I'm referring to in the video when I talk about coming back to the Netherlands. I love the Dutch train network, but when compared to the Swiss it's pretty obvious that it has a ways to go.
I guess Swiss people can only take the train in Japan. 😁
Whelp, we better keep our crummy train infrastructure here in LA…don’t want to accidentally turn into a Swiss Elitist! /s
Obviously I’d actually love nothing more than for this to happen haha
We have very dense railway network too, but a corrupt system based on ineffective subsidiaries. After watching this video I wish Swiss Railways bought and managed ours :-). Well done Switzerland!
@@NotJustBikes I loved Japan's public transportation. it's not always new, modern and shiny as some people might imagine, but always spotless clean and in perfect working order.
9:29 "A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It's where the rich use public transportation."
I think this quote you used absolutely nails it. A developed country =/= a rich country.
It's hard to realize it but, beyond a certain level of development, GDP per capita is to be forgotten to evaluate a country's performance and health.
@@etbadaboum GDP is a garbage metric at EVERY level of development.
That's why I say the US isn't a developed country. On so many metrics.
@@jogennotsuki well, per Capita makes sense, but gdp by itself is mostly useless, a country like Monaco has a tiny gdp vs a country like France, but France on the whole isn't as wealthy for the average person vs Monaco
@@jogennotsuki Well it's easy to compare with GDP the US and Mali for example. Not so with Japan.
I'm from Japan so I know what's a pretty good transportation system is like (except Tokyo's population density) and yet this video alone made me want to visit Switzerland. Especially the way they are able to sync their train schedules which sounds impossible in Japan with so many train companies. The train apps here are pretty good though.
I'm from the UK and I marvel at the fact that the trains that I got in Japan almost 20 years ago felt more modern and were cleaner and more efficient than the trains are in UK in 2022.
Got back to Switzerland with my friends from Europapark in Germany. Now in Olten, around midnight, it was the last train I had to take home. But that one got cancelled, whyever. It was one of these very rare moments, where no further information was given....
Still, I took another train which I know drives through the location I had to go. It was not supposed to stop there. But after explaining my situation to the ticket inspector, they called the driver and agreed to make an exceptional stop just for me and my friend. I was very happy that I did not have to spend the night outside, especially since I had no money left for a hotel. That one was a big plus for the SBB in my book.
Watching Not Just Bikes makes me want to cry for how backward my supposedly richest-country-on-Earth is.
it's still the richest, you guys just have a strange way of dividing up and using those riches... That makes it one of the poorest developed countries at the same time.
and yet they kept claiming supremacy... true supremacy is when you get your arse in the bag and start expanding your HSL like china did (but at quality)
@@Blackadder75 Gotta keep those "biggest military" and "highest incarceration rate" numbers up somehow... :/
and the most free! you have so much freedom to only use a car.
@Galloping Goose I feel trains like these would drastically increase quality of life which would decrease the desperation, increase the amount of wealthier people who take public transportation, and thus have an impact on how Americans treat public spaces and services. America in general has a huge individualistic problem where selfishness takes precedence, I think mass transit like this could seriously change the way we behave on a large scale. How many times does an American have to interact with another living breathing human while commuting by car?
11:17 Something to point out here: One reason as to why small delays dont massively impact the connections to other Public transit is because they are all in constant communication. If X Train arrives 5 minutes late, and a Bus was due to depart 4 min after arrival of the train, the Bus driver will get notified of the trains delay and wait 1-2min longer so people can make it onto the bus. I experienced this system first hand and its beautiful (Also, Buses automatically turn red lights green if they approach, which makes the bus transit very smooth and accurate)
some buses. mostly the traffic light used during road construction so the wont be delayed.
The bane of my student life - bus leaves a minute before the train arrives
@@maximilianschmidt7433 For me, the privatization of the Deutsche Bahn was the biggest mistake. All of a sudden it's required to make money, and you can only do that by cutting costs. The result? Pissed off workers that work more than they should, and a boss that refuses to acknowledge the problems and says stupid shit like "no, we do not have a shortage of staff".
Yes, trains are expensive to maintain and a good train network is even more expensive. But the better the train network, the less cars we have on the road, and that's what we should aim for in the long run.
I wish it was the same in my hometown of western Switzerland. Here buses are always stuck in traffic and wait a long time at intersections. As a result buses are extremely slow and often completely packed, so it's often much faster to walk instead
in the Netherlands, the railways say this isn't possible to do anymore be abuse its just too busy. perhaps it's true sometimes, but definitely not always
What really blew my mind was when - standing at a station in Zürich - they announced that my S-Bahn train (I think it was the S10 up to Uetliberg) would be "40-50 seconds late". Here in Austria they don't even bother with announcements for delays under 10 minutes.
Personally I'm really happy with the ÖBB where I live. Sure, it's not as good as in Switzerland, but in the past year or so I can't remember a single train I used being delayed more than 10 minutes. I remember one being canceled a few months ago due to the a storm during the night, but that was at peak times so the next train left in 15 minutes anways.
@@salticus I have a love/hate relationship with Austrian rail services. Some connections are brilliant (like on the Südbahn between Vienna and Wr. Neustadt), some like the S40 I used daily before I started cycling to work, and which my wife still uses are just shite. Delays of 5-10 minutes are frequent, and not even communicated, and about once a month a scheduled train just doesn't arrive. At all, with no announcement. And when the next one arrives half an hour later and one asks WTF is going on the answer from customer service is "there was no problem, your train just came by a couple minutes early".
Bloody own up to problems, dear ÖBB! We customers understand problems (like "it took us some time to clear the tracks after the heavy snowfalls" instead of "because of UNEXPECTED snow" in fscking DECEMBER), we ain't morons, y'know.
One thing that I love the most about Swiss rail transit is that it is in general NOT reserved, unlike many trains in neighboring European countries. And since "standard" SBB tickets are valid on any train that day (this doesn't apply to discount tickets, however) then you can easily go about your day, and then whenever you want to catch your train, simply head to the station and take the next available one. And since there are usually a few different routes available, you can decide to stop off somewhere along the way and then simply take a later connection. There is never any stress about "missing" your reserved train and then having a ticket with no value, or needing to exchange it in a long line at the ticket counter. It simply works so well, you just don't worry about it.
While that's true they also have reserved trains tickets which are sold at a budget. I was a broken student there so i needed it
@@ViBoMe true, but at least not every seat of the train has to be reserved, so you'll always (often) have a seat in any train if you have no reservation
yea. i hate that ticket-to-train binding other countries do.
8:10 something else to note here: If a train is not accessible for the disabled, you can call ahead and inform the SBB that youre planning to take X-Train from X to Y, and they will supply an employee at all your stops to operate a small elevator to lift you into and out back of the train.
The same in Netherlands. You can do that through NS app and a person will aid you at the entrance of train station, bring you to your train for departure, help you get on and in general reach your destination safely no matter how less abled you are.
It's called NS Travel Assistance service and the only problem seems to be that you have to request it at least an hour before you need it.
That's amazing.
Man, it must be nice to be civilized :c
@@GregVidua That's just great. Here in Belgium you have to reserve 24 hours up front and tell which train you're going to take. It's ridiculous and I don't understand why they still buy non-adapted trains (and busses). If they were to buy only vehicles that are adapted in about 20 years every train, bus, tram would be adapted for wheelchair users.
@@koenven7012 By law the public transport has to be disabled-friendly. But there are still many trains/buses/platforms which need to be changed which is VERY expensive.
About the delays: a hold up in public transport is considered a perfectly valid excuse for turning up late, even for court appearances I've been told.
Getting stuck on traffic, however, makes you tardy, and you should've left earlier.
Absolutely, you can even demand a written proof of the delay at the info desk of SBB.
there even was an ad with: "We provide you with excuses for turning up late" from a public transport company.
I know that in Japan, they hand you a note if the trains are delayed. Just because their service is so reliable, employers won't believe you if you say the train didn't run on time.
My husband's supervisor usually gets annoyed when someone is late but when it's the SBB's fault, he just smiles and nods.
@@Bluecho4
*Funny thing, that.* Because everyone in Tokyo takes public transportation, your employer tends to be rather sceptical if you are the only one in the office to arrive with a JR late slip. I happened to live just four stops from my place of work, but changing trains at the third station meant that at the subsequent stop I would debark mere footsteps from the exit beside the elevators to my office, rather than onto the platform on the other side of the station. It would easily save over five minutes' walk but this was before Suica and your connection window was really tight, so very few people would bother-and it would backfire on you maybe once every ~20 months.
0:48 Matterhorn
0:54 Olten
1:00 Basel
1:16 Thun
1:40 Susch
1:52 Mürren
2:08 Zürich
4:06 Sargans
5:10 Lauterbrunnen
5:37 Oberwald
5:48 Altstetten
6:10 Bern
8:30 Interlaken
12:34 Spiez
13:31 Zermatt
13:34 Stechelberg
13:48 Luzern
14:46 Kornhausplatz, Bern
15:04 Andermatt
I saw tweet that said "Most of the population of Canada lives along a straight line of cities in Ontario and there is no train going between them" and I felt that in my soul. With so much happening this summer we've been really wishing there were more frequent trains to Toronto. We would go and do day trips and visit friends all the time if we didn't have to freaking drive!!
One fun fact about the Swiss Railways that I read in Matt Parker's book Humble Pi: the software that keeps track of the trains counts the axles of each carriage and stores the number on 8 bits. so if a train had 256 it rolled over to 00000000 and it caused some trains being unaccounted for. But people thought it was easier just to make it a policy to never run trains that have exactly 256 axles. One of my favourite lines in the book:
"There have been plenty of times where a hardware issue has been covered by a software fix, but only in Switzerland have I seen a bug fixed with a bureaucracy patch." 😆😆
lol
But isn't that a problem too if you have more than 256 axles?
@@steemlenn8797 no, overflow.
@@Slithermotion Yeah, but does that not mean it can be registred as a different train?
@@steemlenn8797 Its probably more of a situation where zero specifically is registered as "unused database entry" or "out of service" or some other such special value. Its pretty common in software, especially old software where having to store an entire extra byte to just say "this piece of data is valid" was very expensive.
Nowadays memory is pretty much free (relative to the usage patterns of all but the most intensive programs), so "wasting" bytes is pretty common when it makes code more readable and maintainable (nullable types for example, if you're a programmer) but even 20-30 years ago people would have looked at you a bit funny and 40 years ago they would have have tried to get you committed for proposing such insanity.
@@steemlenn8797 It's not about tracking trains, trains can be tracked in other ways, like radio, it's about knowing if a block is empty. "Is the number of axles counted going in equal to the number going out the other end". If the current difference == 0, then the block is open and a new train can go in. So it doesn't matter if it rolls over as long as it ends up on any nonzero value. It doesn't matter which one, as long as it's the same number when the train leaves, so it would only matter if the train changed length in the block, which generally isn't something that happens.
This video brought tears to my eyes because the truth can sometimes be painful. I returned to the US in October 2018 after living for 4 years in Switzerland. I miss the trains and the overall committment the Swiss place on providing high quality public infrastructure. I also agree with the quotation about a developed nation being one where wealthy people take public transport. Car dependant communities suck! My son had more freedom of mobility as a 12-year old than he does at 16. I'm glad to see you visited Mürren. I loved to ski there in the winter.
Can I ask why you moved back to the US?
@@Twist3dSavi0r New job.
Organize in your City and demand better Mass Transit. Also demanding BBB would be great.
@@timvoliva2269 I'd gladly take a 30% pay cut to move to CH from US indefinitely. There are some things money can't buy, like having respectful and generally quiet neighbors and low crime.
@@michalandrejmolnar3715 The correlation between what the general population wants vs the laws that are passed are almost zero. Only top 1% seems to have some correlation.
Currently in Switzerland, with a Swiss travel pass. As a Dutch citizen that takes the train everyday, I’m still absolutely amazed!
As a British citizen who has visited the Netherlands several times, I find dutch public transport very good. So if you as a dutch person are amazed, then that it is praise indeed.
didn't expect a video about trains to make me cry but i'm seriously depressed at how much like 99% of people are missing out on a style of living that doesn't completely suck.
I remember one time after a hike with friends we reached Brig and I proposed going to Dommodossola in Italy to have a pizza and gelato and then back to Bern. Friends from overseas were just amazed at how easy and spontaneous it was to do that. Super thankful for the swiss public transit système!
Oh I so want to go hiking in the Brig region again😭😍
Off topic, but what hike did you do?
I just looked it up -- it's a 32 minute trip and the trains run hourly. Nice!
The freedom of travel in Europe is like the greatest thing ever. I recently observed a friend's preparations for going to Australia, and, oh boy, you can't imagine the amount of documents he needed. He plans on moving in late October and had to start his preparations like two months ago, or else he would have risked to not make it in time.
As a Floridian, I've had similar experiences when I did summer jobs in the Northeast. Like getting off work early on 4th of July in Baltimore and just hopping on a train to DC to celebrate that night and come back home. Traveling around the surrounding region of Geneva was just as nice too. I wish that I had more public transit options.
who would have thunk that when you don't waste all of your money on car infrastructure that you can have great public transit. Wild Concept
Yeah, in before Americans complaining that this would be too expensive. They have NO idea how much they and their governments spend on car infrastructure. Strong Towns has done the math, but they won't read it.
The whole damned continent was built on trains, but they tore them up in the name of "progress".
@@NotJustBikes Can you please link the Strong Towns video/article/source where they do the math?
@@alan11194 Might be their book, not a video? Not sure, since I don't own the book. But I'm pretty sure there's a public information somewhere how much US uses in car infrastructure (they also give money to states/cities who do new car infrastructure, right?).
@@alan11194 NJB did a video on it. Check his channel.
@@NotJustBikes I worked for awhile on a disused railway here in the Pacific Northwest of the US. And the fact that we used to have trains to places like Avery, Idaho (small town of like 300 people) but now we are stuck with cars just sucks
14:54 definitely echo this sentiment. I'm Swiss, born and raised, and I spent 1 year in the US as an exchange student when I was a Teen.
I cannot emphasize how trapped I felt during that year.
My host family lived in a car-infested suburbia, meaning if I wanted to go *anywhere*, I had to ask a host parent or host sibling if they could drive me. Nothing was in walking distance, and public transport was virtually non-existent, even by North American Standards, I assume. Not that any bus station would've been in walking distance - upper middle-class suburbia, where the only option really is a car. When I compare what I usually do during a year to what I did during that year... I barely went anywhere when I was in the US. Because I didn't want to inconvenience my host family by constantly asking them for rides but had no other options available. It was one of my least favorite things during that year.
After that year, I finally understood why so many Teenagers are desperate to learn how to drive and to finance their own car. It literally is their only ticket to independent mobility. Heck, even I was considering learning how to drive just so I could independently get anywhere!
So, yeah. Us Swiss are really fortunate to have such a good public transport system. I definitely appreciate it.
(And before anyone guesses - yes, I was on the west coast during my exchange year.)
yes, I have many friends who don't even consider passing their driving license because they have their swisspass with general access instead
@@DrCruel "The US is one of the worst countries in the developed world" wouldve been enough tbh
@@DrCruel The same thing is happening in India. Here public transport is very Bad in rural areas.
Im turning 20 and ive given up on transportation here in the States. I could easily go get my license right now but I dont want to because I know Im not gonna want to drive. Ill have to eventually but i think ill continue to push it off until i graduate from university. I'd rather be on campus from sunrise to sunset every day than deal with buying a car, insurance, parking passes, risking my life with crazy drivers daily, etc. no thank you
actually one good note is that my university is actually decent and has I think 10 or 12 busses that go around campus and even on the outskirts in nearby neighborhoods and streets. While on campus you might be waiting either 5m or 20m for your bus. There is supposedly an app but Ive never gotten it to work properly. There was one route that perfectly synced with my class schedule last semester that saved me about 1/2 mile of walking every friday so that was nice
@@jg6551 " I'd rather be on campus from sunrise to sunset every day than deal with buying a car, insurance, parking passes, risking my life with crazy drivers daily, etc. no thank you" ..... I understand your sentiment about crazy drivers. The problem is that it is sooooo easy to get a license and then almost impossible to lose. Many people on the road really do not need to be driving. From the inconsiderate fool who thinks he/she owns the road to the 99 year old great great grandpa or grandma who just won't accept the fact that they need to stop driving.
At 7:30 it was my train, i work as a train driver of this Train and also Glacier express
Here in Germany the "Deutsche Bahn" used to have a policy (or still has) where cancelled trains were not included in the delay statistics. Meaning that if no trains are operating, the punctuality would be 100%.
Can confirm, still the case... Also to add to that the delay time that is still considered as punctual is 15min.
As an anecdote: when I was still at my old job I had the privilege to work right next to the one station between two big ones (both too far to use instead). So instead of 3 different Trains home, I only had access to one. This train then told me at least once a week that it is going to "end" the very next station, because it's delayed so much (usually 20-25min). So at that point it'll turn around and I'm supposed to just take the next one. This stopping and returning was exactly for that reason of not appearing in the statistics and was scripted to happen in exactly that delay case. If the train doesn't complete it's trip to it's destination, it's cancelled and therefore not "late". If it in turn starts at a random point and just skips a bunch of stations in order to arrive "in time" at it's destination, it's considered punctual.
I once saw a presentation by an data analys with 1 year of data that trains over 45 minutes of delay rarely have any chance of catching up in any way as they are basically declared a lost cause by the "Deutsche Bahn". Probably because they are so out of their timeslot that they have to grant right of way to other trains in order to not to cause other delays.
West Germany also has a higher overall delay than East Germany. Mainly due to congested areas like the Ruhr area.
@@TheDestino8 It used to be 6 minutes. As of a couple years ago it's actually 15 >.>
@@entropyzero5588 Damn... Well that explains a lot
Thanks for the info
DB does indeed do that and so does the SBB in Switzerland, but it actually makes a lot of sense to do that. Because what is the number you would write down for the delay statistics? 15 minutes? 100 minutes? Infinity? That would skew the delay statistics and doesn’t give an accurate picture. Therefore there is a third category for cancelled trains. So a train can be one time, delayed or cancelled. I don’t know how it’s exactly defined in Germany and Switzerland, but in the Netherlands a cancelled train would not lead to 100% punctuality and the ministry sets targets for the railway for the maximum number of trains that can be cancelled, so it’s not an easy way for the railways to boost their on time statistics.
As someone living in Switzerland, now I know how Dutch viewers usually feel when they watch a NJB video :)
You bet!
Its refreshing to see countries doing better then The Netherlands, great job Switzerland!
Well, it is good to have something to work towards, in terms of trains. In this regard my Dutch pride does urge me to say that at least we have the cycling thing still in our favour ;)
It was just about time you guys received the recognition you all deserve!
@@gieljanstouten As a Swiss, I would like to stress that the Netherlands are doing a great job at public transportation as well. Switzerland can learn a lot from the Dutch in terms of bicycle infrastructure.
I am from Switzerland and I got to admit that I really love public transport here. The SBB is working on a new automatic security system for trainstation in order to increase the frequencies of trains in the Zürich HB even more.
And another thing that I like is that without exception all trains are electrically powered which makes the trains much more quiet. That's something I always notice when using the train in Germany where a lot of the smaller trains are powered with diesel motors that are rather noisy.
There are exceptions to the trains tough, but these are usually event trains. Such as the steam train in engadine.
9:39 adding to this point: Even state secretaries in Switzerland often use trains... they have chauffeurs and helicopters at their disposal as well but it goes to show that it's oftentimes easier to take the train inbetween cities...
Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) employee here, naturally typing this message while sitting in a train.
Another thing worth mentioning is that the trains have great mobile connection too, since the network providers put up antennas along the train lines and there are repeaters built into every carriage. Of course I watched this video on a train too ;-)
By the way: The swiss, being the perfectionists they are, are never truly happy with SBB. In their eyes the trains should always be more punctual, more reliable, cleaner and of course cheaper! But maybe it is precisely this perfectionism that pushes SBB to be the best it can be.
It definitely should be subsidized in prices to make it cheaper than Car and Air travel.
@@michalandrejmolnar3715 The price isn't cheap but it isn't outrageous either. It's quite affordable for what you get.
It's also because the quality of the service is decreasing from year to year...
I don't like that if you don't have one of those ridiculously expensive Mobile Data plans you just don't have internet in the trains only in postbus they have wifi :(
@@LeZylox i pay 20 per month and got unlimited data and calls inside, for 25/35 you got calls and some internet aboard.
I have a love-hate relationship with this channel. I absolutely love the content, the style, and everything else. But I hate how much it reminds me of the lack of infrastructure we have in America
Haha, yea I feel like a lot of us are in this boat 😔
This. This channel made me despise living in America. I always have, to be honest, but now I know why lol.
It's about the same for me here in Germany but when the hate comes up I can cool down by thinking "could be worse, like in 'murica"... sorry for that.
@@midwestnagyfa4648 The fact your 'repair' bill is/was controversial says it all, doesn't it. I don't see how anyone who wants their country to prosper, can oppose a program to invest in vital infrastructure.
@@hendman4083 if you have a ton of money and or are just out of the loop it can seem easy to oppose infrastructure bills
Either because you have your own infrastructure
Or because you don't see how it benifits.u
SBB: Those in wheelchairs can access the stations with our ramps and elevators!
This Chad at 8:32: Reality can be whatever I want
And to be fair to the Dutch: They helped with the Swiss network too. Willem Jan Holsboer from Zutphen founded the Landquart-Davos AG, which would become part of the Rhaetian Railway in Graubünden. He played a role in turning the town of Davos into an internationally renowned health destination in the late 19th century.
for me as a swiss this is really interesting to watch. I think we often take our public transport for granted because you hear people complaining about SBB a loooot! the swiss are always very punctual, so I guess every little delay is annoying for us haha. in the last month there were many delays in the bern area because of people jumping in front of the train (sadly) or railwork. this often happens in july, since it‘s the month were most people travel through our country.
There‘s one thing you forgot. It‘s not only the trains but busses too. You can literally reach every little village even if they only have like 200 residents. kinda crazy if you think about it. I live near thun and here the bus and train departures are timed so you can reach every connection. i have a bus every 10mins from 5:30am till 00:00am (on weekends even longer).
yeah. I feel like i'm part of the many people who complain about SBB. but I have to say, this video kinda opened my eyes, i should appreciate more all the effort of the country in public transportation
You live in a very beautiful area, don't you ?
@@colinparisod1693 me too
But remember, being good doesn't mean it can't be better
...as long as we don't complain too much
@@Nokyyyyy I‘d guess so yeah. At least in my opinion. Always waking up to the beautiful mountain panorama across the lake is really nice.
@@tobimael yeah
I love the region around the two lakes
Given how exited you were about the Swiss train service, this might blow your mind: When a neighbouring country train is late, the swiss goto extreme measures to get it back on schedule. For example the intercity from Hamburg to Zürich is often late. So the Swiss stop it at Basel and send it back, to prevent it disturbing the Swiss schedule and to try and get it back on time! What about the passengers? There are plenty of services from Basel to Zürich; and in Zürich the PA system would have told everyone to already take another train to Basel to meet their intercity. So train back on time and all passengers merrily on their way…
The DB does a similar thing sometimes, just turning the train around earlier than normal, and it SUCKS. You get dropped off somewhere you don't want to go, many people get stuck somewhere they just wanted to leave, and all of that just to increase the on-time statistics which don't include canceled trains 🤦
They even have extra trains on standby to replace the delayed trains within Switzerland so the train doesn't need to be cancelled in Switzerland
@@jan-lukas I mean, it's less trouble than letting a train that's an hour late drive through the country. Only then would there be delays.
Austria does this, too for trains that come from Slovenia or Croatia. I've been stuck in Villach a few times already because the train from Zagreb didn't make it in time.
There is a Hamburg-Zürich intercity? What's it like?
Wow, my parents brought up a trip to Switzerland a few hours ago and had worries about potentially getting around due to how remote some towns etc seem and how it might be difficult. I vaguely mentioned a decent rail network to them saying it wouldn't be too hard to get around if needed but this is insane. This is lightyears ahead of what we have home here in Ireland.
Just sitting down with your parents for a bit with Google maps I’m transit mode will likely put most of those fears to rest.
Just punch in the various trips that you plan to take and I bet you’ll find out that there’s loads of options!
Ireland barely deserves to call itself European our transport is so bad
"worries about getting around" and "Switzerland" do not belong in the same sentence! haha
Mind you for a few towns (Zermatt, Riederalp, Bettmeralp) you'll have to take pulic transport unless you want to to walk or bike there but there's no (legal) way of getting there by car.
The public transport here in Ireland is absolutely abismal
When we were in Switzerland we travelled by train. We had several 6 minute transfers and were nervous about it, until we realized there was another train 30 to 60 minutes later. We were on vacation, so it did not matter. We never missed a single transfer. The 6 minutes was plenty of time!
I took the train up to Interlakken which went straight up a mountain cliff. As the wheels creaked & squealed I was a little uncomfortable - is this giant, heavy machine really going to make it? I looked out the window to see a life size, carved bear waving & smiling & I broke out laughing. Not only do the Swiss provide excellent train service, they also provide emotional support for nervous tourists! 😂
Great video :). Thanks for mentionning my article on the integrated timetable.
No problem! Thanks for your help with the analysis.
Here's Jokteur's article, for those of you who are allergic to checking the UA-cam description:
www.jokteur.com/a/integrated-timetable-switzerland/
It's cool you did the research! ^^
@@NotJustBikes The 'Show More' option in the description is much like page 2 of google
Yup, and Google is making the description even less visible and harder to click on mobile.
Or, on the caption, Confoederatio Helvetica.
In a way, this interconnected system totally suits Switzerland.... The country's transport system operates like one beautiful Swiss clock.... A complex of little pieces all working together to create consistent accuracy for its ppl. Loved this vid!
It's a compact, very rich country. That makes a difference ..
@@dejavu2752 I mean but the US has large Slots of territories without mountains and it literally cost like 10 times more per mile to drill through mountains so compared to where the US population is settled even if it's 10 times less denser, the cost should roughly still be the same.
@@dejavu2752 Most countries have regions smaller, more densely populated, with worse service. Compactness means nothing in and of itself, it's a matter of how a nation and government prioritize it's people's needs. 14 US states and several territories are denser, 1's only slightly less dense. None of them have similar service, even New Jersey, which has the tracks, more density, and major commuter travel on consistent routes
it's incomparable to the US. Different culture, different priorities
The most depressing part of this video is the throwaway comment that Switzerland has a similar population and area to something like the GTHA (Greater Toronto Hamilton Area). We could have had a region that looked like Switzerland in terms of land use and infrastructure...
Oh no, he said the population is similar, but the area is way smaller.
Even less of an excuse to not have decent public transport.
@@blakksheep736 Not sure that's correct. Switzerland is 41k km2. The GTA is 7k km2, and the Greater Golden Horseshoe (the somewhat silly name for the largest urban agglomeration including Toronto) is 31.5 km2.
@@andrew20146 It is correct, you just proved it yourself with numbers...
@@andrew20146 He meant GTA is smaller.
Somewhat ironically my country's Switzerland embassy is almost a mile from the nearest bus stop (nestled at the end of a sprawl of semi-detatched houses, but with much smaller setbacks than N America's single-family homes), with the nearest train station further away, so I heard some students who visited it had to walk ~40min
It seems to me the Swiss government looks after their citizens. I impressed that there are so many villages with train connections. This is so sweet. The trains are modern and great views.
One of the main raisons I can think about is because the swiss government is made of Swiss people just like any other swiss inhabitant. Take for example last year's president was (and still is I think?) a winemaker who works in the fields.
Taking care of the population is also taking care of themselves.
The other reason is that most laws must be voted by the population before being applied or refused
My country meanwhile can wait decades after a neighbourhood is developed before building a train station probably as they're worried it'll be underutilized, but a side effect is that sometimes the n'hood wasn't designed for the station which then ends up having to make some design compromises e.g. be sited further away
Hate to break it - but the costs for some connections are expensive as hell. And swiss taxes provide money for SBB. In addition car driver‘s pay also for the bucket of SBB. I would pay 20% more and loose 40min on my way to work with the bus/train instead of with the car. The swiss Transportation System is good as long they get enough money. Punctuality ~91%? Hahaha sure… good connections? Depends which direction and the size of the city…and yes I am Swiss lol
I love it that Switzerland is both sprawling and not car-dependent. It shows that there really is no excuse for the suburbia found in North America.
Yeah, and the villages/towns are usually very walkable and historical. With tons of local businesses and all.
There are still many rural areas in Switzerland which heavliy have to relay on cars, but nowhere to the same degree than in the USA
In Switzerland I mostly use the car for fun at the evening or week end to go and hang out with friends or something like that. I enjoy driving in this country because it's not like I have too, it's I want too. The road quality is impressive and usually trains don't operate much later than midnight.
The 'integrated timetable' used in Switzerland is exactly the same system as used in the Netherlands. Their frequencies are different, the system is exactly the same, the whole network runs on a single optimized integrated system. Even a lot of bus lines that connect at train stations are linked to this system (but don't influence it, they just follow to achieve the best connections).
Yes, that is correct. But I've travelled around the Netherlands a lot by train and transit and while it's quite good, the connection times and punctuality aren't quite the same as travelling in Switzerland.
But of course the Netherlands also has the benefit of very good train-cycling connections, and safe cycling infrastructure almost everywhere. So there's the possibility of taking the train and using an OV Fiets at your destination. But that's a topic for a future video.
@@NotJustBikes a word to throw around about this in dutch is "ketenmobiliteit" (chain mobility): trying to optimize public transport for the follow-up connections.
And there is pretty big difference between a lot of linked connections and everything being wholly integrated. Ofc the combination of really good public transit and being amazing at bike infrastructure is quite something to be holden.
The Netherlands actually has higher frequencies than many Swiss lines. Half hour services in the Netherlands are the minimum on intercity routes whereas in Switzerland it's usually hourly. In exchange, Swiss trains tend to have to be much larger capacity wise... You won't find 400m long passenger trains in the Netherlands (aside from the ICEs, Eurostar, and the occasional Thalys).
@@NotJustBikes I wish I had the power to end any discussion with a "but that is a topic for a future video"
I am forever entertained by your definition of a "tiny" town.
13 000 is a very reasonably-sized city in my eyes, Spiez isn't that small.
I live in Switzerland too.
In my village there are less than 8000 people.
There are busses driving every 15 minutes from 5 in the morning until eight in the evening. After eight busses drive every thirty minutes even past midnight. Additionally on weekends busses will drive every hour until four in the morning for people that come home from partying in the city nearby.
the busses are almost always on time and if they are more than three minutes behind schedule you get a push notification from SBB Mobile. I love using trains/busses in Switzerland.
I'd love to hear a panel discussion of Swiss engineers as to how they'd (somehow) fix the US train system here if it were up to them. We suffer from a particular ignorance in the US that assumes that good examples from other countries somehow don't ever apply to us by default. Switzerland, a country with a bazillion mountains, ironically has a beautifully working train system. Given that, anything in the US ought to be possible.
It's all just a question of money. We spend idiotic amounts of money on our rails. But its partially state owned, so it's not just gone, even if a project fails. Also the federal government can force the sbb to service every little small village because of that. On the other hand the germans privatized their national rail services and, surprise, surprise, a third of their rail network just disappeared since then. Also the Deutsche Bahn has now hundrets of sidebusinesses like cargo transport on roads and honey production, because you have to diversify your portfolio right? Sadly this means that their trains are run like a sidebusiness now and the quality of the service corresponds to that. So if I, a swiss dude that has absolutely no expertise concerning trains, other than being swiss an using very good ones on a regular basis, may speak for the experts, I'd assume they'd recommend putting rail services under state control and subsidize it with money you tax away from car drivers (either via gas tax or via tolls). And don't let the republicans tell you that this is socialism. It's not. It's just investing in good infrastructure to not be a third world country.
I imagine the Swiss engineers would just laugh. We barely even have a train system to fix. What's happening in California with the half-baked "high speed rail" is, to a cynic, an object of derision and scorn, and to a taxpayer, a cause for weeping. Trying to get from Los Angeles-- the most populous metropolis in the most populous state-- to anywhere but the Bay area or San Diego or Chicago on Amtrak is a joke. The Northeast is better, but the times we've visited there and tried to take a train, there was no place to park our rental car near the station. So we drove. And airplanes are faster, even after the two hours in the airport checking in and going through security.
@@exrobowidow1617 LOL yes, I imagine it would involve a great deal of well-deserved mockery. But that's the easy part. The tough part would be finding the best solution to fit our particular geography & socioeconomic needs. Without AMTRAK, the middle of the US would literally become "flyover country", it almost is already. And the fault lies with the legislators who demand that AMTRAK solve that challenge using exclusively capitalist tools. Any European perspective would correctly conclude that AMTRAK's hands are tied. So given a 'blue-sky' socialist scenario, (to which I would agree is the logical direction) what do you think should happen?
Swiss Engineer here. I am not a full-time railway expert but I have worked on algorithms to improve the timetable scheduling of the Swiss railway system under the constraint of limited rail capacity (briefly touched upon during the video). While there are some obvious things to improve in the US system, I don't think any Swiss Engineer can solve your problems just like that. Our system has been improved incrementally for over 100 years and there is no and has never been the one perfect approach to solve everything. There are plenty of problems in the Swiss railway system (e.g., most big stations are dead ends which scale very badly for a number of reasons). Those cannot be solved easily, so we work around them, including some very expensive solutions like complex bridges and tunnels just to avoid rail switches which would block other tracks while passing.
In fact, a few months ago, I was thinking about making a video about Zurich main station, how it is really inefficient by its 170-year-old design and how Engineers worked around it to make it the busiest station in Switzerland. There are tons of little tweaks to make it a marvel of engineering.
Take it like this: There is this video of the Today Show interviewing the former Swiss minister of defence and asking how the US could be like Switzerland: Full of guns with hardly any gun violence. The minister just laughs and does not even try to touch the hot potato. I think it is similar with the train system.
US propaganda on exceptionalism doesn't help achieve progress.
Discovering this channel has completely changed my outlook on all of America and where I live. It makes me so jealous of European countries! All I want is public transit and bike paths. Is it that much to ask for?
@@Bruno-P I would absolutely love to!
@@starluigi5297 : I’m jealous as well but that jealousy motivates me to want to learn to make efficient trains for the US. I’ll try my best to get the US the trains we need.
The quality of public transport and cycling lanes varies here country by country, even region by region but the key thing is that in places where such infrastructure is of high quality it didn't just happen overnight. Citizens like you campaigned for it, worked together through grassroots organisations and protest. If it was possible to do it in here, I'm sure it's possible overseas too. If there is a will, there is a way
@@somavitoldnagy-korondi9038 the problem is, there is no will for it in American cities :/ at least not by the majority.
@@Bruno-P Most people in my generation have realized or at least agree that there are too many cars and not enough public transit which is good at least, sadly that means not much will happen until we are all old enough to be in power.
I live in Switzerland, and I sometimes go back from family vacation by train, specifically taking the most convoluted route possible because changing trains a dozen times and somehow still arriving is SO satisfying !
I'm Swiss and the only time in my life where I genuinely had a crappy experience with an SBB train being cancelled and delayed was one time where it was 37°C in summer and the heat literally caused the tracks to bend and all the hundreds of passengers from the IC (inter city) train had to get out and wait for buses to take us to a tiny town where we could take regional trains that ran on different tracks. Because we were some of the last people to get on the (maybe 10 or so) buses after maybe 45 minutes, we had to wait 30 minutes for another regional train because it was too small to handle so many people (which is not fun in body temperature degree weather). I just remember this German business lady telling us that her bosses told her that "as soon as you're across the border in Switzerland, the trains will not be an issue anymore" and how disappointed she was over that not being true haha
And it's not even just trains. Ferries, small cog-wheeltrains, eveything interconnects so brilliantly! Such an amazing pleasure to travel. Thanks for reminding me to book a train/hiking holiday to Swizerland.
Yes, exactly. It really did work like clockwork. The only time I really needed to wait was when taking the gondola back from Gimmelwald. I had to wait over 15 minutes for a bus.
But as a guy who grew up in a city with buses scheduled to come every 45 minutes, but that could easily be 30 to 40 minutes late because they rode in mixed traffic, it was nothing.
@@NotJustBikes Be sure to take the SOB "Treno Gottardo" next time
@@NotJustBikes So the Swiss watchmakers got into making trains it seems?
Wait ferries ? You mean those on the lakes ?
@@farminky it's just a small thing but what I like about them is that they have a good hand dryer in the toilet. I don't know why but on every other train the hand dryer sucks and your hands are as wet as before.
Switzerland: spends millions on making sure absolutely everything has rams and are super handicap friendly.
The man on wheelchair in the video:
‘’Takes escalator’’
Switzerland: Am I a joke to you?
I mean wheelchair accesible escalators is sure impressive.
That guy was just built different
That ramp looked way too steep to be considered "wheelchair accessible." In the U.S. at least, the ADA guidelines call for a roughly 5 degree incline (specifically a 1-to-12 ratio of run:rise); I estimate that ramp at 8:28 to be around 15-20 degrees incline.
I do not blame the person for taking the escalator. Probably quicker than waiting for an elevator too.
(Edited to fix time link, and make the ratio not appear as a time link)
We not only have rams on everything, but other mountain goats too, like capricorns and chamoises. I'm not sure if they all are handicap friendly though, most will just run away if you come too close to them.
I'll inquire more about the issue.
Have a good one, stay safe.
Good travels.
Edit at t+3 minutes: Sadly my SBB app doesn't give me any surplus information on the mountain goat handicap friendlyness. In good old Swiss tradition I'll write a complaint to them.
Once saw a guy jumping up a regular staircase in his wheelchair exiting a Berlin subway station. The core strength of that man is something else.
I love Switzerlands trains. One vital thing I learned though as a tourist: don't get a train before 9am on a weekday if you don't have to - the price of any ticket drops significantly at 9:01am. Also if the station is manned with a ticket office (not all are but most major city ones are) just make sure the ticket inspector knows you're a tourist and they'll find you the cheapest ticket for the route. The Swiss are proud of their trains but know they're insanely expensive. The good thing is that the trains are so efficient you can take your time having a lazy breakfast and still make it just about anywhere before the day has really begun.
With a half fare card Swiss trains aren't that expensive at all...I mean £50 for a 3+ hour 1st class buy on the day ticket is exceptional value! Living in the UK, I can tell you Swiss trains are much cheaper than UK
@@nico_pen the train I often use is CHF 10,40 for 30 minutes and roughly 20-30km
What do you think about it ?
@@Nokyyyyy I think given the standard of the trains and their punctuality, that is not a bad price at all. Mate, you will pay more in the UK for the same kind of journey on shittier trains...I mean the Northern England have only just got rid of pacer trains which were essentially busses on rails and utterly shocking
I was on a holiday in Switzerland some days ago, and I must say that I’ve never seen that many trains before on a line. The variety was also incredible (you had suburban, regional, interregio, Intercity, Eurocity and night trains at almost every hourof the day!). The extension of the network is superb, it touches every part of the Country, even alpine villages no one has ever heard.
Thumbs up Swiss Railways, it was a shock to see the trains in my Country after that!
I remember reading a reddit post in which a guy would study on the trains, just like how you would study in a cafe. He would sit in a train while it roamed around the country and return back to his city at the end.
Imagine having trains so good that someone would actually study in it; not by necessity but by choice.
Our teacher always said he didn’t mind taking a train that took like an hour from bern to zurich everyday because he enjoyed that he could get work done or relax.
Sometimes the employer allows a reduction of up to 1-2 h of working time per day if you can spend this time working on the train. That's how it was still manageable for me to have a job that required ~4 h of daily commute
@@MoeThaCrazyBartender isn't this the new normal anyways? the concept of working form home/train/maldives is here to stay, brother:)
I'm not the least bit surprised.I live in Austria in a river valley where there is a train line through out it, which stopped at every small village (some have less than 1000 inhabitants). When I went to vocational school for my apprenticeship I had to travel 30km in each direction every day and on some days I came home at 6 pm, so studying on the train was the best thing ever.
In some trains, maybe. Or maybe in 1st class. But many trains are full of tourists, with kids running and shouting inside the train, where you can't hear yourself think.
As someone who spends countless hours a week on Swiss trains, I have gotten a bit frustrated with them in the recent months, as taking so many trains of course also increases the chances of a delay (I‘m afraid „Personenunfälle“ happen a lot and the SBB can‘t really do much about that..), but this video really made me appreciate my privilege again - thank you!
Same, mir sind zu verwöhnt😂
I rarely mind a delay. Just enjoy a book or the scenery. Or are you a doctor? ;P
Yaa, same. I experience a good number of issues rather frequently. Having said that, I commute from down at the lake up into the city of Zürich, and frankly its getting old after many years of doing that. It's one thing taking a tourist train into the mountains on a weekday, but it's a completely different thing hitting rush hour every day in and out of the city. I think the only thing worse is taking a train out of the city on a sunny weekend. It's crowded af and you probably won't have a seat, you'll stand in between mountain bikes or skis for an hour or two, there's climbers with all their gear and you will stumble over tourists f'in rolling suitcases everywhere, getting coughed at by no-maskers getting screamed at by kids running around with their moms pushing you around with their huge strollers and whatnot. And not like it's cheap either. This is an expensive experience. Just thinking of it increases my blood pressure. No fun at all.
I'll move into the country side in a few months time in fact and intend to buy a car. After 20 years of urban public transport, I'm over it. I just can't take it anymore.
@@letsgoo4722 isch au guet so, lol.
@@mkteku I'm sure it's not gonna matter if im late for training /s
I think it is worth mentioning that we (in Switzerland) have a very strict law about urban planning that doesn’t allow as much urban sprawl as we see in North America. In a more dense area it is way easier to create an efficient transit system (no matter if we consider it at a city or country wide scale).
This channel has put into words (and pictures) so many of my frustrations and desires for urban living. My whole adult life, I have chosen to live close to urban centres in order to increase the possibility of walkable medium-density pedestrian-friendly living. Spending a few years living in a medieval European city cemented these commitments and by the time I returned to the settler-colonial car-obsessed Anglophone transport hellscape of my youth, I knew that there could be no climate justice, no urban ecological flourishing, no social justice or simply cultural thriving without each of those including transport justice.
Thank you for your work.
Yup. That's exactly why this channel exists. I had to learn all this stuff the hard way over the last 20 years, and it took me that long to figure out how and where I wanted to live. I don't want the next generation to have to do the same (or to live their lives without knowing it).
I think it all starts with taxes. Less taxes = less quality of life.
@@nfboogaard The country this video focuses on would like to disagree.
@@NotJustBikes Especially since this entire culture of everyone needing a house with a two car garage really just makes most people want to sit inside all day. It’s especially interesting when you mention that this is the old school way of doing and the progressive way is more inline with the current way.
Indeed, and you've hit the nail on the head by using the term "justice", because North American land use and transit decisions often boil down to trying to keep "poors" out. It's nothing to do with the popularity of houses or cars, it's because people think only people with money can afford houses and cars, excluding them from car-oriented house-only areas. There won't be justice until we stop tolerating this.
Toronto here. My wife and I took a two week bike tour of Switzerland using government tour maps. All the routes took us past train stations giving us the option to pedal or not pedal the route. Awesome. You missed an opportunity to show how bikes are transported (hung) alongside the rider taking little space for both. I am fighting our intercity train company (GO Transit) here in Ontario to offer a 21st century service so I and my bike buddies can travel with my bike around the province for my daily long distance rides.
He already made a video on Swiss biking
Thank you for your efforts! We need better transit!
I love the way you show off how well-designed intercity train systems aren't just for train enthusiasts, but make life a lot better for every single person who simply wants to go about their day and get from Point A to Point B quickly, cheaply, and comfortably. Keep preaching the good word!
I'm from Spain and used to visit Switzerland often with my family when I was little, Switzerland is indeed an amazing place with excellent transportation. With the Swiss Pass you could get any train that you wanted easily and going from village to village was a breeze. I miss going there every summer I want to go back and visit soon.
as a swiss living in Canada, public transit was my biggest culture shock!
"what do you mean there is no GO train during the weekend??"
"what do you mean I now have to wait 1.5 h in an empty parking lot in the blizzard because there is no connection between 2 GO buses?"
"what do you mean there is no centralized website to find schedules/service between cites?"
10:42 my jaw dropped when I saw that the app includes estimates of how busy EACH SEPARATE CARRIAGE IS! 🤯🤯🤯
I'm swiss as well and one thing travelling has especially taught me to love in Switzerland is their train replacement system. If your train has technical problems or a route is blocked it will be replaced by a replacement train or by a bus to go around the blocked track. The only time this doesn't apply is for lines where you have a train every 15 minutes.
I remember one trip to Germany where a local train from Aachen to Cologne got just flat out cancelled on a line where the next train was a full hour later.
I mean, in Switzerland they'd not only replace that train but also make sure you'd make your connections whenever possible.
My fiance (who is a wheelchair user) and I are planning our honeymoon and are interested in going to France and Switzerland, with the plan of taking trains all around. It's great to see that the Swiss trains are so accessible, because accessibility is our greatest concern throughout the trip!
I don't know how accessible French trains are to wheelchairs, the metro in Paris wouldn't be a good idea but the buses in Paris pretty much are all wheelchair accessible. I don't remember seeing wheelchair toilets in French TGVs but there are a couple different ones. The last ones I took you needed to go up a step to get in the train and then down a couple.
You also have stations where you need to walk down and up the stairs to get to the good tracks (lots have elevator but it's less common in the mountains, or smaller stations).
I'm sure people would help you if you asked (If you are in Paris it may take a little longer to get help, people always seem to be in a hurry compared to other cities).
I live in switzerland and allways thought that every developed country had the same level of public transport. I even thought that our public transport in rural areas sucked, because in the village (~1200 people) I live, the bus to the trainstation (trains every 30 min in 2 directions) would only drive 15 times a day on weekdays. And I sometimes (especially if I wanted to go out on a Saturday night) needed to bike 5-10 minutes to the trainstation. But when I saw how terrible Public transport in Germany or Italy (or how nonexistent it is in the US) I realized how privileged and how spoiled I am to live in such a nice country.
What horrible conditions you have to live in! lol
My current (Germany) 3000 people town once had a train line, closed a few years after reunification. We have 3 bus lines converging here going to the next big cities. Service once an hour. Travel time for 20/30km air distance about an hour too, because it goes through all the villages. Price is about what you would pay for fuel in a car if you go full distance.
That actually one of the better connected places for "rural" one. A lot of more remote, small villages in Germany have 2-5 buses a day, generally at school/work time start and finish.
@@steemlenn8797 didn't a lot of lines in the east close after reunification?
@@jonistan9268 Train lines? Yes, many of the small branch lines. (But the West was just a bit faster.) For example the line to the 3000 people town I live in now.
I grew up in a village of 7k people in the northern mountains of Portugal. There are no bus or any sort of public transport there to take you to another village or the main city of the district. I would have to walk around 45minutes to reach the city if my parents couldn’t take me by car. And this city of around 50k people only got a public bus line around 10 years ago. 🤡 now I live in Zurich and I realize what it means to have ÖV in your life. I can never go back.
Every year, there is a "Fahrplanverfahren". You might lobby at your town government to persuade for better service. It may take patience and persistence, but things can be improved. Maybe also get friendly with the bus operator and find out what is possible from their point of view.
Edmontonian here. I’ve always felt like I hated the fact that I had to drive 30 minutes each way to see friends, to stress about finding parking, to laughing at the bus routes because they’re useless, and never taking the LRT because it doesn’t service the majority of the city, but I always thought “that’s the way it is”. You’ve opened my eyes. Ever since I started watching your videos a year ago I now understand why it’s so frustrating. And I now realize it doesn’t HAVE to be this way. I can’t wait to move 😂
Well said! I am also here to learn how to invest after listening to a lady on tv talk about the importance of investing and how she made 7 figure in 3 month, somehow the video taught me nothing and left me even more confused, I'm a newbie and I'm open to ideas on how to invest for retirement
@@rajeshupadhyay5683lookup Teresa Jensen White, this is her name online, she's now the real investment prodigy since the crash and have help me recovered my loses
Financial management is a crucial topic that most tend to shy away from, and ends up haunting them in the near future
Investment now will be wise but the truth is investing on your own will be a high risk. I think it will be best to get a professional👌
@@lezliewhicker8450i just lookup her name online and found her accreditation on FINRA and SEC, she seems really solid. I leave her a mail on her webpage🙏
I feel as individuals we get more freedom, possibilities and (political) influence in this country compared to other nations. As a Swiss I'm so grateful to be born here :D
Also, I love the fact that I can travel to Austria, Germany, France or Italy in less than a day, there are so many amazing cultures around us!
"delayed trains in Switzerland often come from different countries"
I was in Switzerland two months ago, and we went by ICE from Frankfurt. Because the German rail infrastructure is crumbling and forces regional and long distance trains to share a lot of track, it's pretty much guaranteed that you'll have some delays. So I wasn't surprised when our train reached the Swiss border by Basel with half an hour of delay.
But I wasn't expecting the announcement that said "the train will terminate here instead of Zürich lmao, sucks to be you". The train was so delayed that SBB said to DB "we don't want your delayed service on our rails, stop right here".
So everyone was kicked out of the train, but luckily you get to choose any train that takes you to your destination if that happens, so we just took the next Swiss intercity to Zürich.
That really happens a lot. Switzerland is a small country and is surrounded by large cities like Milano, Frankfurt, Munich, Lyon. A significant percentage of long-distance trains is thus crossing at least one border, here or there. Some of the lines (e.g. all lines connecting to Germany...) are notoriously delayed and have a huge impact on the whole swiss network because everything is tightly connected and timed. That's why they sometimes stop the train on the border and let people take other regular inbound trains.
happens all the time. swiss train might be good but if you need to go or come from somewhere outside Switzerland they just do not care. I got a Milan-Frankfurt which was stopped casually in Basel.
Half an Hour is nothing; you get 25% of your Ticket Price back after 1 Hour of Delay and half the Price after 2 Hours, at least as long as the Deutsche Bahn can't find a Way to blame "Fate" (which can be reasonable like bad Weather but also includes technical Breakdowns; Maintenance is expensive so you can't blame them for not doing it). Trains even are considered "on Time" here as long as they're under 15 Minutes late. Until a few Years ago, the Curfew was 6 Minutes instead, but the Deutsche Bahn failed miserably at their Goal of having 75% of Trains on Time, so Management changed the Definition from 6 Minutes to 15 Minutes and then paid themselves Millions worth of Boni for "improving Punctuality". Btw. today, about 45% of Trains are "on Time" as in delayed by not more than 15 Minutes. Freight Trains even are delayed by Days or even Weeks.
@@Genius_at_Work I know, I was expecting half an hour of delay to be honest. It's so common that I was surprised that the train cancelled at all, it's an almost normal amount of delay.
@@namenamename390 The SBB doesn't let German Trains into Switzerland if they're over 20 Minutes delayed, because it is so normal that they don't want the German Chaos to mess up their Clockwork Schedule. Germany is now planning a similar Schedule, which would require massive Infrastructure Upgrades. Problem is that these take Decades or even Centuries in Germany; upgrading the 150 km Karlsruhe-Basel-Line to four Tracks is planned to take 70+ Years, and upgrading 1.5 km of Branch Line nearby to two Tracks is planned to take 15-20 Years.
...and yet, many Swiss people still own, use and love their cars. They have plenty of well maintained road infrastructure and some the the most beautiful scenic drives on the planet. I lived in Switzerland for 2 years and I never spent much thought on how to get anywhere there (or anywhere in Europe for that matter). You walked, biked, took the bus, train or hopped in the car as needed and appropriate for the situation and never gave much thought to it beyond where you wanted/needed to go and when. As you say in the video: TRUE freedom. Not the 'murrcan FRAYDUMB variety. It isn't a question of "trains vs. cars" or "either you're with us or against us". It's about balance and reason and appropriateness.
Well Car Infrastructure destroys downtowns and living even in Europe, But Europe Has a Long Tradition of Mass Transit that wasnt Cut Off Like in the US, also because Mass Transit was Always government owned. Also the Eastern Block Had a Major Focus on Mass Transit.
When you have a well developed public infrastructure that satisfy all your locomotory needs, owning cars just for the feeling of freedom is wasteful in terms of resources (to build cars & roads, to maintain them etc.,) The truth is we need to abolish cars to combat climate change.
It's not freedom if you're being forced to drive to not die. So far, I haven't even felt the need to learn it, it would cost me a lot and I don't use it anyway because public transport is good here in Switzerland.
I have been to Switzerland and have Swiss ancestry as well. It is a beautiful country. I traveled all over the country -- Zürich, Interlaken, Bern, Montreux and Genève. You can get anywhere by train, either the MOB or the cog railways.
In the USA, it depends a lot on which part of the USA you're in. I live in Eugene, Oregon, or "Track Town, USA". Right now, we are hosting the World Athletic Championships, a track and field event where the best athletes from all over the world compete. You don't get to be "Track Town USA" without miles of hiking and running trails, parks, open space and walkability. In fact, the entire state of Oregon is quite walkable, with the entire coastline being public land. You can literally hike from Portland to the coast on an old rail line that was turned into a hiking trail -- through some incredible wilderness in the Coast Range.
@@mushroomsteve A high speed rail line from Eugene to Vancouver BC would be cool. Shanghai to Beijing train runs at 249 mph so about 819 miles in about 5 hours. In theory, Amtrak could do Eugene to Vancouver in 11 or 12 hours with the current equipment, The Chinese train going the same route ( better trans obviously) at 249 mph would be about an hour and thee quarters. Portland to Seattle, 40 minutes? Eugene to Portland 20 minutes?
Yesterday I took the train from Chur to St. Moritz. In Samedan we had to wait for another train which gave us 4 minutes delay. An old man next to me said to his wife: “4 minutes delay! These trains are not anymore what they used to be…”
Every time I see a vid about Switzerland, can't help but relive the time I spent there in school. Wouldn't have learned about basketball and become a big Chicago Bulls fan if it wasn't for the memories there. It's also why Korean isn't the only language I know
"A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It's where the rich use public transportation" that's no ordinary Bogota mayor, that's Gustavo Petro, first left-wing politician elected in Colombian history. While we respect Gustavo, we find it ironic his last name is Petro and yet he advocates against fossil fuels.
A well done "troll"-account, served perfectly. Hope most understand the topic behind what you have wrote and why :D
Excellent North Korea x Switzerland x Columbia Crossover trolling. Well done Sir
äuä
thanks Kim, now why dont you adopt some swiss democracy over in your place as well !?😀
Yes it was very great there
One of my favorite thing about swiss public transport is that they run buses to everywhere. We visited in the winter for a day from France and wanted to get up a mountain but in a day that's pretty hard especially when there's snow. So we looked around and there's a regular bus service right up the mountain, with heavy ass snow chains to get up a tiny completely snow-covered road to nowhere. And it runs twice an hour. On time. That is absolutely insane. Even the fare wasn't terrible.
Small towns in the US and Canada are dying by losing population, especially young people. I wonder if it would be different if commuting to the nearest city or airport was a train journey instead of driving.
In situations where the town is only a 40 minute train ride out of the city I think it definitely could. That’s a reasonable amount of time for a commute or to go see friends for a sports game and some beers.
Towns further out than that likely wouldn’t benefit though.
They're dying because there's nothing to do there. When you're young and want to experience new things in life and meet people, staying in a small town is a losing proposition. Having big roads but few attractive destinations is not a good investment.
A few years ago I rode SBB's international service from Munich to Zurich in the middle of Oktoberfest. When I went to the dining car for dinner, the whole car was decorated with Bavarian flags and Oktoberfest-themed tablecloths, the serving staff were wearing dirndls or lederhosen as appropriate, and they had a special Oktoberfest menu in addition to their regular offerings.
I immediately thought that VIA Rail or Amtrak back home in North America would NEVER be able to do something as creative as that. Heck, they can't even put dining cars at all on routes that "short"! Just the "AmCafe" in the States or the snack trolley coming down the aisle in Canada.
I live in a city in Australia, and have been following your channel for about a year, and have just returned from a very pleasant three week visit to Europe, including Zurich and Paris, but mainly in Germany, where we made good use of the excellent rail system and the amazing 9 Euro pass currently available in Germany. The trains are quiet and comfortable, tolerate luggage, bikes and prams. Your comment about being so civilised is also the thought I had in my mind the whole time we were in Europe. My impression is that the locals are sophisticated, polite and friendly, and if you think that Germans do not have a sense of humour, you are not listening close enough to the banter. I found generally the service at restaurants and bars refreshingly attentive, entertaining and well worth the rounding up tips. Cars use the Autobahn and roads with separated bike and pedestrian lanes, rather than the 'stroads' you are constantly complaining about, that we also live with in Australia, which are very noisy and dangerous. It was great to see all this with my own eyes. I might be wrong, but I think Australians may not be mature enough to handle a German Autobahn, or the much looser drinking laws. I found it strangely confronting to pass people in parks and public places with an open bottles of beer acting like normal citizens! Another thing that surprised me was a green park in Hamburg that I was told was a roof over the Autobahn. That is civilised. It may have been the summer holiday time for most when we were there, but still the car traffic at peak time on a Tuesday afternoon was no where near what I would expect in a city of over 1m.
Anyway, thank you for your soothing, informative and good humoured videos on how we should be living. I can't wait to experience and see more of Europe in the future. Prost!
Excellent video, the Swiss love their railways and they have a very unique approach to them!
Coming from a small town in Vermont, I am astounded at the availability of trains in small towns in Switzerland. It is literally unheard of in the US. If there is a train at all, it is practically miraculous. Taking the train from Albany, NY to NYC takes as much time as driving does as does the train from NYC to DC. Trying to find an affordable train that fits your schedule is very challenging, especially when there are so many cheap bus companies that go the same NYC to DC route. I don't drive and would much prefer to never drive, but that isn't entirely feasible in the US because our transit systems are broken at best. I would much rather wait for a train connection with a view like you showed than to be stuck sitting in traffic.
I'm in NH, and car dependency is the worst.... Owning a car is nothing but stress and money
Just walk 4head
@@zhoubiden6003 I have no problem walking, even long distances, in undergrad when I went to school in New Jersey and was going to Boston regularly via a bus from Chinatown in New York City, I'd walk from Penn Station all the way to the southern tip of Manhattan instead of taking the subway, but my job is currently over 30 miles from my home, so walking is not an oprion
@@post-leftluddite oprion lol
I once travelled from Johnston, RI to New York by train. It was a complicated trip to book and complicated to board the train. The food was mediocre and the delay was substantial. Boarding a train in Switzerland involves walking onto the platform and boarding the car, just like getting on a bus. In the US - at least at the time - boarding a train was like boarding a plane. You get called and you could only get on the platform for a limited amount of time while the train was in the station.
There's a saying about neighbourhoods "bad drives out good" and I recall that when taking a Greyhound bus in LA many years ago. I felt I was almost the only sane person on the bus. If using a transport system means a drop in personal safety or perceived social status, that is a hard sell to those who could afford it.
On the other hand, when executed well, any logical soul would welcome the chance to enjoy, rest, eat, work their travel time.
Superb article.
need some eugenics in the US before we have trains. Americans and Swiss simply can not be compared.
@@concernedparent84 I wouldn't go as far as "eugenics," but I'm sure it helps that Europe offloaded a lot of its lower-class, less-educated excess population to the US, Australia, and elsewhere back in the 19th century.
12:30 “I was in a tiny town of only 13,000 people” Dude, that’s quite a large town!
8:37 that was so badass omg
This channel is easily one of the most important things I’ve ever come across on this website. I am a born and raised American and when I was still in college a few years ago I did a study abroad semester in France and I always tell my friends and family that it was one of the best experiences of my life, but until I came across this channel I really couldn’t explain why. Then it dawned on me: my daily transportation process wasn’t an excruciating hellscape that it is over here in America. I could walk to almost everything I needed and if walking was too much I had a bike that was more than satisfactory. Now after finding these videos anytime I’m in traffic on the way home I find myself thinking about how much better it could be here if we weren’t stuck in this car centric way of thinking.
Within the next few years I hope to move to Europe and live there but until then those car payments are gonna be making me just a bit more angry.
America can Change too. Needs Just popular demand. Demand better Transit and Vote accordingly.
I would say you should for sure come to Germany! It is very welcoming to americans, the level of english here is high enough that you can find a job and get your visa without knowing german at all. Also I think it is possible to come here in a holiday Visa, and get it converted to work visa while on site, which is very convenient.
A relaxing, informative and easy to watch video. The commentary was so charming to listen to compared to other monotone, tedious voices used in different educational vids. A hint of humour tucked inbetween clear and precise details made the narrative even more enjoyable. The editing and visuals were also a joy to behold. My attention span is very short but it was easy for me to stay interested from start to finish. Thanks for a wonderful intro to your channel, Not Just Bikes.
An important aspect of integrated timetables is that infrastructure is build to support the desired timetable. This includes decisions on where to build passing tracks, etc, to ensure that trains will arrive to the hub station in time to connect with other trains. In other words, you make infrastructure fit the timetable, not the other way around. This is something Switzerland has mastered really well and it's crucial for the system.
One other thing to mention is that fares are integrated across the country so you can buy ticket from anywhere to anywhere, no matter what modes of transportation you use. In most countries this is only possible within one region. This also means that if you buy an unlimited pass for Switzerland, you can take just about any public transportation you want (except some tourist services, etc.). While most countries offer annual railpasses, they usually don't include local services or buses.
I'm really looking forward for the nationally integrated timetable that is going to be introduced in Germany (Deutschlandtakt). A key point is that with such an integrated timetable, you don't build the infrastructure first and then work out a good timetable, but instead you work out a target timetable, and then make infrastructure improvements to be able to meet that timetable.
The problem that we have is that due to poor policy decisions and a lack of investments, the train network is run at or above capacity, which means that any little delay has massive ripple effects and causes delays throughout the system. This is especially bad in the Ruhr area and in Frankfurt, but it's a problem throughout the country. DB has already said that they're going to have to reduce service in the coming years to be able to do maintenance and to upgrade lines. The new coalition has promised to spend more on train infrastructure than car infrastructure, but the minister for transportation sees himself as an "advocate of drivers", so it's an uphill battle.
Yeah as a swiss I'm excited about that too.
But It took the SBB decades to where it is now, and the system is good but it also costs a lot.
And when you look at the news today germans look at the 9€ ticket and want something like that in the future...
So Germans want to have a system like switzerland but with cheaper tickets that they have today in an industry that is already mostly subsidized by the state.
I really don't think that the germans will come far with the "cheap cheap cheap" mentality if they want to build their rail infrastructure for the future.
Oh man, since that 9€ ticket was implemented train delays and cancelations have been insane in NRW. If you want to get anywhere relatively on time you have to leave at least an hour before your train ought to arrive. If your train isn't delayed/canceled, you'd better be prepared to stand for the duration of the trip, packed like a sardine next to twenty or more people. I mean it was bad before but now you can see how overburdened and underprepaired DB is.
@@Slithermotion The 9€ ticket is important for another reason: it gets people into the trains, it gets people thinking about what trips they could use the trains for, and it creates a lot of awareness for the need to fix the train network. IMHO it's not a matter of money. Germany is a rich country. It's a matter of priorities. In the 90s and 00s, the idea was to streamline DB, make it profitable, and privatize it, sell it off. Luckily they didn't do it in the end, but a lit of damage was done. There was too much focus on the financial aspect, on making it profitable. But the train network is public infrastructure, it shouldn't have to be profitable. With the 9€ ticket, the focus has shifted to actually thinking about the benefits trains bring to society, and to the idea that spending public money in order to get more people into the trains than before.
And the 9€ ticket isn't just about being cheap, it's also about the fact that once you have a monthly pass, taking the train to get somewhere is a no-brainer because it doesn't cost you any additional money, and it is also about not having to deal with the absolute hell that is German Verkehrsverbünde.
A relatively realistic yet still fantastic scenario that could come out of the discussion would be a countrywide pass for al local and regional public transport, for the same price that you currently pay for a citywide pass. Currently, the only countrywide pass we have is BahnCard 100, but that is expensive and basically only worth it for people who travel a lot by ICE.
A sad part about the DB, imho, is the fact they have bought that big Truckdelivery Company Schenker and afaik they make more money with that than with the Railroad. Their interest is greatly on that so... 😕 let's hope
yesterday i was going from hannover to duisburg and right before the station at duisburg we stopped because there was a defect sbahn train at our platform. we waited 1.5 hours until we finally had a platform again... but hey at least we got free water since our conductor was also so not having it
8:31 what a legend I live in swiss and never saw someone doing this XD
I cant imagine how amazing life would be to just hop on a train that takes you right to mountain bike trails. That would be the dream.
When I visited Switzerland recently I was so shocked at the train service. Whenever I needed to make a connection, all I had to do was walk across the platform to the next train which was already there when my first train arrived. I thought it was a coincidence at first, but it kept happening and I realized the Swiss really just think everything out in a way that no other country has managed to do yet.
By far my favorite thing about the SBB app is the EasyRide feature. Was able to use it once with a friend in Zürich to take a spontaneous trip to Lugano and Como for pizza. The train connections were so easy and frequent. Doing that with any other system would be very difficult.
agreed, it is also super useful when you are in a rush and the one minute to buy a ticket would be too much (aka: I would miss the train). Just switching it on and being able to run in is a livesaver.
Yeah I didn't get a chance to use it on this trip, but it's a great idea.
For anybody curious, here's information about Easy Ride: www.sbb.ch/en/timetable/mobile-apps/sbb-mobile/easyride.html
The most important part, and the part many other transit systems miss, is that Easy Ride _automatically calculates the most cost effective ticket for your ride._ I hate hate HATE it when transit has discounts, but only if you know the obscure discount code or ticket that you had to have bought before the trip.
I need to make a video about this some day, because cryptic transit fares are really holding back transit adoption in many other countries.
@@NotJustBikes Admittedly not as nice, but one thing I love about my country is that as a student I can travel by train for free, provided I get my ticket before capacity fills up (iirc 50%, but it may have changed). In practice, I haven't had problems getting in day before, and the few times I got my ticket the day of I was mostly fine as well. Also as a student, I get 50% off on bus/tram connections, with a further 10% by using my student card to buy the electronic ticket once I'm on board. Importantly, final cost is just a function of travel time, since that's how the tickets work. If I were to travel often enough, there is of course the option of a monthly/yearly/etc pass.
Slovakia btw.
@@NotJustBikes that's right. a very useful function of the app. i used the function for an excursion with a ship on lake bodensee. a very warm day. this way you can also decide at short notice when you want to get off. it does not matter if city bus, intercity train, or ship, etc.
@@NotJustBikes if the app registered you outside of an connection, you get a notice that you might forget to check out
With intercity trains being on time 58% of the time in Germany (5 minute window, June 2022), I apologize to our Swiss neighbors for ruining their statistics by delaying their international trains. Also apologies to Switzerland and Italy for taking at least 46 years to build proper high-speed rail on the rhine valley railway. :P
Having had the opportunity to do an exchange there, the trains there really are splendid. I was able to really test the punctuality of the trains by "visiting" every major city of Switzerland, from Luzern to Geneva via Bern,, to Basel, to Lugano, to St. Gallen and to Zurich. All in a day. Only two connections were late, one from Italy (thankfully not so late I missed a connection), and the other into Zurich Hauptbahnhof.
Also worth mentioning it's the intercity trains that wait for delayed local trains, as intercity trains can make up for lost time more easily.
Well dear friends, add the fact that even London where I lived for many years if it snowed the capital was paralised, but in Switzerland winters are much colder with much more snow and all still works! Well, Switzerland is Switzerland!
This has opened my eyes to just how lacking the public transport is in the Netherlands sometimes if you're not in a big city. For example, if I wanted to go from Emmen (100k) to Beilen (10K) after 7pm it would take me at least 1h15m, even though it's only a 35 minute drive. It's only a 20 minute drive from Hoogeveen (40K) to Dedemsvaart (12k), but it takes at least an hour with public transport any time of day.
Not expecting to see you here! Love your channel!
Helemaal waar
I live in a 10k town 25 km away from 100k city in Poland and there is one bus a day on weekdays, no bus at weekends. There is a craft beer festival coming up and I'm literally planning a sleepover 25 km away from home because I want to try some drinks.
In Scotland it's 20 minutes from Falkirk to Airdrie but 2-3 hours on public transport
Ik ben ook nog altijd boos dat Hoogeveen geen IC station meer is lol. OV is echt lacking hier in Drenthe