In certain areas, such as football, Switzerland is struggling to establish itself on the European scene. But, when it comes to taking the train, “there are none like us”, as the Vaudois say. According to a report published this Thursday by Litra, the public transport promotion association, the Swiss are first in all categories of rail line ridership.
To begin with, compared to the number of inhabitants, the 22.3 billion passenger-kilometers (pk) traveled by the Swiss give us an average of 2,466 pk. This distance is much greater than that of the 24 other countries taken into consideration in this study. Austria, second in the ranking, only displays a rate of 1576 pk. Followed by France (1481), Sweden (1261) and Germany (1215).
The best progression, if we compare the figures of the previous year, however goes to Croatia (+40.2%), ahead of Luxembourg (+27.6%), Ireland (+26.1% ) and Spain (+24.6%). But Switzerland, with +13.2%, has nothing to be ashamed of. She also came back very close to her absolute record, established in 2019, of 2,505 pk.
In addition, in 2023, each Swiss person will have traveled on average 68 times by train. Which also places them on the first step of the podium in this category. With 43 train trips per capita, Luxembourg ranks second, ahead of Austria (36), Denmark (34) and Germany (33). Note that the case of France is special. Thanks to TGVs, its residents often travel long distances. Thus, if they total a large number of kilometers traveled per inhabitant (3rd rank), each French person only takes the train 18 times per year on average (9th rank).
