WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. -- Despite slowdowns in the world's travel industry, Switzerland's highly integrated railroad system has reported record passenger traffic for 2002, according to Rail Europe, a distributor of Europe's rail passes and tickets in North America.
Typical of Swiss tourism activities, the national train system of the country (Swiss Federal Railways or SBB) reported a 5% increase in passengers, carrying a total of 320 million people last year, and 4.6% growth in revenues, Rail Europe said. Further, train punctuality improved so that 81% of all trains arrived precisely on time and 95% arrived no more than 4 minutes off-schedule. Customer satisfaction hit an 81% level.
To assure its continued growth, Swiss rail is stressing its handy connections to Europe's high-speed rail network and transalpine traffic to France, Germany, Austria, Italy and the Low Countries. In this area specific key advances have been the Cisalpino high-speed trains linking Switzerland to Italy, and connections to France via TGVs and to Germany via ICEs, Rail Europe said.
Meanwhile, the SBB continues to invest heavily in the Swiss rail system so that by the year 2012 train capacity will grow by 30%, Rail Europe said.
Details on and bookings for these trips and other information in this article are available from Rail Europe at 1-888-382-7245 (in U.S.) or 1-800-361-7245 (in Canada) or log onto http://www.raileurope.com.
