In Swiss cities, many commuters choose to use public transport. It is punctual, safe and reasonably clean. But strictly speaking, it is not fast. It comes out as just 0.5 km/h faster than the public transport in German and Austrian cities on comparable routes, and does not even reach twice the average walking speed.
Urban public transport systems are forced to make compromises. A denser network of stops will shorten walking distances but also reduce the travel speed of the transport mode. This is the concession Swiss cities take on board, making it more worthwhile, in terms of speed, to use public transport in this country than in Germany and Austria. It follows that Swiss cities take the lead, especially over shorter and medium distances. On longer routes, public transport in German and Austrian cities is as fast if not faster. There are also a greater number of transfers in Switzerland than in our German-speaking neighboring countries. However, the waiting time for each change is much shorter in Switzerland.
| Three figures that one must keep in mind | ||
|---|---|---|
| CHF 2,517 million | CHF 800 million | CHF 1,717 million |
| This is the effect of real bracket creep for all three levels of government, after just ten years of real wage growth. How come? Because of this real wage growth (8.43%), the tax burden for the federal government, cantons and communes does not increase by 8.43%, but by 13.26%. Anything above 8.43% falls into real bracket creep. | This is the effect of real bracket creep at federal level. In 2020, the burden on households from direct federal tax amounted to CHF 12.1 billion. Without real bracket creep, it would have been CHF 11.3 billion. | This is the effect of real bracket creep at the level of the 26 cantons and their communes. In 2020, the burden on households from cantonal and municipal income taxes amounted to CHF 47 billion. Without real bracket creep, it would have been CHF 45.3 billion. The figure is based on an extrapolation of the cantons evaluated. |
St. Gallen and Biel have the fastest public transport systems. They are the best at mastering the compromise between the density of the public transport network and the transfer frequency. The seven cities in German-speaking regions of Switzerland have higher speeds than the three cities in the French and Italian-speaking regions.
These overall low speeds in urban public transport show that it is well worth taking possible future means of transport into account in today’s planning of mobility systems. It could be that there are smarter mobility solutions that iron out these compromises better, cheaper, ecologically, and at least as sustainably.
