Switzerland remains, by far, the European champion of train travel. Both for the number of journeys per person and for the kilometers traveled, the Helvetii are well ahead of other countries.
In 2023, the Swiss traveled an average of 2,466 kilometers by train per capita (passenger-kilometres) and used this means of transport 68 times, the public transport information service (Litra) indicated on Thursday.
Over one year, passenger-kilometres increased by 13.2% and journeys by 11.5%. In absolute figures, traffic last year exceeded the 2019 record by 2.5% (i.e. before Covid), with 22.3 billion passenger-kilometres.
Significantly more than the country ranked second
Thus, the Swiss use rail more than 50% more than the country ranked second, both for kilometers per capita and for frequency.
Behind Switzerland, the main rail countries are, in order, Austria, France and Sweden. Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark and Luxembourg follow. In contrast, the train is almost non-existent in Greece and very little used in countries like Croatia, Bulgaria, Estonia, Lithuania or Romania.
Only Japan competes
The study is based on data, notably from Eurostat, including the 25 countries of the European Union with a railway network (therefore excluding Malta and Cyprus), as well as Great Britain, Norway and Switzerland.
On a global scale, another study showed that only Japan rivaled Switzerland for the popularity of rail.
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Swiss
