Switzerland remains the European leader in rail travel

This week, ahead of a vote to decide whether to expand the nations roads, LITRA, an organisation championing public transport in Switzerland, published its annual report on train travel across Europe. The figures show how far ahead of the rest of Europe Switzerland is on both the average number of journeys and distance travelled by train.

*Swiss Rail © Folco Banfi | Dreamstime.com*

In 2023, per capita train travel in Switzerland reached 68 journeys covering an average of 2,466 kilometres in total. The number of train trips (+13%) and kilometres travelled (+12%) were both higher than in 2022.

However, the high number of per capita passenger-kilometres travelled in 2023 (2,466) remains short of the record in 2019 (2,505).

In second place, Austria (1,576 km) was only 64% of Switzerland’s (2,466 km) tally of per capita passenger-kilometres travelled. Next was France (1,576 km), followed by Sweden (1,261 km) and Germany (1,215 km). Per capita passenger-kilometres travelled in the UK (880 km) were only 36% of Switzerland’s. Greece, with per capita passenger-kilometres of 65, had the lowest train usage in Europe.

Switzerland also led the pack in terms of the average number of train journeys per person (68) in 2023. Again this put Switzerland well ahead of any other European nation on this measure. Next in line, Luxembourg (43), Austria (36), Denmark (34), Germany (33) and the UK (24) were well behind.

Despite coming third on per capita kilometres of train travel, France came ninth on the number of journeys (18). This reflects France’s well developed network of high speed trains on which people travel vast distances in a single journey.