SWISS Federal Railways (SBB) says passenger train punctuality reached 93.2% in 2024, compared with 92.54% in 2023. This is a five-year high and compares with punctuality figures of 90.56% in 2019 and 91.91% in 2021.
In Switzerland, a train is considered to be on time if it arrives within three minutes of schedule. SBB points out that its measure of punctuality is much stricter than in Germany, where trains are regarded as on time if they arrive within six minutes of schedule, whereas the punctuality threshold in France and Italy is five minutes.
SBB says connection punctuality was 98.7% in 2024, the same as in 2023. However, customer satisfaction with arrival punctuality reached 87.6 points, an increase of 1.5 points compared with 2023.
“The high reliability of the rolling stock and infrastructure facilities contributed significantly to this positive development,” SBB says. “The weather was good on average throughout the year, which also had a positive effect on punctuality and customer satisfaction.
“Nevertheless, it was occasionally evident how vulnerable the rail system is to extreme weather conditions.” SBB says heavy snowfall on November 22 2024 adversely affected punctuality and several short, severe weather events in Switzerland and other regions of Europe had an impact on rail services in Switzerland.
Freight
In contrast with passenger services, freight train punctuality declined 1.8 percentage points to 88% in 2024. SBB says this was due to an IT system switchover at the end of 2023, challenges on the Gotthard route, the declining reliability of old locomotives, and a shortage of staff.
SBB says 2025 will be challenging due to numerous planned engineering works and events such as the UEFA Women's Euro soccer championship and the Eurovision Song Contest. “Various measures are being implemented to maintain and further increase punctuality,” SBB says.
“These include the implementation of the 2025 timetable in the West region, the replacement of the old fleet and measures to reduce the impact of the weather on punctuality, such as the optimisation of winter services.”
The February edition of IRJ will include an article looking at the resilience of railways in Alpine regions to extreme weather events and how infrastructure managers are attempting to maintain reliability.
