Andrew Nash
Vienna Transport Strategies

Zürich Public Transport - An Introduction

Switzerland is famous for its trains and public transportation system. You can get pretty much anywhere in the country using a combination of trains, trams, boats, buses, mountain railways, and cable cars. And not only is it possible to do this, it is easy: all these forms of transportation are coordinated so that, for example, the lake steamer you want to take in Lake Lucerne is coordinated with the arrival of the intercity train from Zürich, so you can walk across the plaza in front of the Lucerne train station to the boat dock and within five minutes the boat will leave (and the ticket you bought back in Zürich is good for the boat!). The Swiss National Railroad (SBB) website describes the national system in detail and includes trip planning software.

Zürich is world-renowned for its extremely high-quality public transit system. It has one of the highest levels of per capita transit ridership in the world—no mean feat when one considers that it also has one of the highest levels of per capita income. People in Zürich are definitely "choice" riders, and the city's public transit system is good enough to attract them.

Trams and Buses - Transit Priority - The first thing one notices about Zürich is that trams (the European word for streetcar) are ubiquitous downtown. The city considered changing its tram network several times (either placing the trams underground or replacing the trams with a metro system), but voters rejected spending money on these ideas. However, in 1977, Zürich voters did approve an initiative to make the existing surface transit system work better by providing transit priority for trams and buses.

Transit priority means that public transit vehicles are given priority over other forms of transportation through such measures as traffic signal control, transit-only lanes, and traffic regulations. Watch carefully as a traffic signal changes from red to green just when a tram arrives at the intersection. Transit priority was not a new idea, but Zürich has succeeded in implementing it to a greater degree than almost any other city in the world. Zürich's public transit priority program is described in Implementing Zurich's Transit Priority Program a research report I co-authored for San Jose State University's Mineta Transportation Institute.

S-Bahn - Regional Rail - Transit priority keeps trams and buses running smoothly within the city of Zürich, and the region's suburban rail system, the S-Bahn (the 'S' stands for schnell or fast in English), connects the city with cities and villages within the region. The S-Bahn is operated by the Swiss National Railway under contract to the regional public transit coordinating agency: the Züricher Verkehrsverbund (ZVV).

The SBB's German website includes a description of the new through-line under the Zurich Hauptbahnhof currently under construction. The new tunnel and station will significantly increase capacity and quality of S-Bahn service.

Today's S-Bahn network is the result of a massive building project completed in 1989 that included construction of a four-track S-Bahn station under the main train station (Hauptbahnhof), a tunnel under the old city, and a tunnel under the Zürichberg. The new station allowed S-Bahn trains to travel through the main station rather than using the push-pull operation required in the surface terminal; this allowed new routes and greatly increased the flexibility and efficiency of S-Bahn operations. (Interestingly, this significant project was only approved by voters on the condition that fares and schedules for all the region's public transit operations be coordinate—which led to the formation of the ZVV.) More history of the S-Bahn is available in Implementing Zurich's Transit Priority Program.

The S-Bahn runs on a clockface schedule: all the lines operate every half-hour (some are more frequent) at the same time each hour. For example, the S-16 trains leave Stadelhofen Station for the airport at 12 minutes after the hour and 42 minutes after the hour, all day long, from about 6 am until midnight. In the city of Zürich, there are often several different S-Bahn lines that operate on the same sections of track, so it is possible to take any one of these trains, leading to a much higher effective frequency than every half hour.

The S-Bahn schedule is also used to coordinate bus services outside the city of Zürich. For example, the S-Bahn train arrives at a given station every half hour. Approximately three minutes after the train arrives, the buses waiting at the train station depart on their routes. These buses return to the station approximately five minutes before the train arrives, allowing for easy transfers. At some of the larger stations, passengers transfer from express S-Bahn trains to local S-Bahn trains. A good station to visit if you want to see how this timed-transfer system works is Wetzikon (take the S-5 express S-Bahn from the Hauptbahnhof or Stadelhofen station).

The Integrated System - Many cities have developed three-level transit systems. These systems include buses or trams for short trips, metro or subway systems for intermediate-length trips within cities, and suburban rail systems for longer-distance travel within the region. Zürich has adopted its two-level system to serve all trip lengths by implementing the transit priority system—which allows the buses and trams to serve the shorter intermediate-length trips efficiently and quickly—and by building more S-Bahn stations within the city than typical suburban rail systems—which allows the S-Bahn to serve the longer intermediate-length trips. This combination of transit priority and S-Bahn is a very good fit for Zürich and cost far less than constructing a metro system.

Zurich Transportation: Additional Information and References

This section presents links and downloads that provide additional information on Zurich and Swiss transport planning and policy. Here's a list:

• Questions and Answers on Zurich's Transport System prepared in response to a newspaper reporter's questions (2007). PDF Version
• Swiss Transport Policy: Mobility vs. Sustainability paper presented at the 10th International Conference on Travel Behaviour Research, August 2003.
• US Transportation Research Board Report describing results of the Fall 2001 International Study Tour. The report provides a great deal of information about public transport in various Swiss cities including Zurich.
• I have written several publications on various aspects of Zurich and Swiss transport planning and policy.