For each journey, this map shows the route, the price of the ticket, how crowded each vehicle is, and who the
other passengers are. The route comes from the official timetable; the crowding and the passengers from a
simulation of the whole Swiss population; the price from a model of the Swiss fares.
Finding a journey
The timetable is a long list of connections: a vehicle leaving one stop at a given time and arriving at the
next one. The router goes through the connections of the day in order of departure (the
Connection Scan Algorithm) and keeps, for each stop, the best way found so far to reach it.
"Best routes" (the default) weighs every minute by how unpleasant it is, with the weights of the Swiss transport
model eqasim-switzerland: a minute on a train counts 1, on a tram or
metro 1.12, on a bus 1.58, a minute waiting 1.72 and walking 1.97, and each change adds 6 to 13 minutes. So a slightly
longer journey with fewer changes and less walking can win. "Fastest" only looks at the arrival time.
You can walk between stops up to 400 m apart, and from your start (or to your destination) to the stops within
800 m, at 1.2 m/s.
Prices
Swiss fares are fragmented: a journey can combine SBB trains, priced by distance, the zones of one or several
regional fare networks (ZVV in Zürich, Unireso in Geneva...) and local operators. There is no single price list, so
the ticket is rebuilt from these pieces, following a simplified version of the
official tariffs:
- each ride belongs to the fare networks of its stops, and the zones its track crosses;
- a network covering the whole journey prices it; otherwise each part is priced by its own network;
- zone networks charge by number of zones, the SBB by tariff kilometres, and rides in no network by distance;
- then come the half-fare card, discounts, 1st class, and free travel (GA, under 6, Junior card, Gleis 7, your
zone subscriptions).
Discounts take a share off a ticket: by age, for students, and possibly only for the people who live or study in
the area of the fare network (its zones). When several apply, the largest one is used. The places where a student
lives and studies stay in their browser and are only sent with their searches.
Prices are estimates and can differ from the real ticket. With the tag button, you can change the fares and add
discounts yourself and see what every journey would cost.
Crowding
A MATSim simulation lets a synthetic population of Switzerland
travel through a whole day. Counting the simulated people who board and leave each vehicle gives its load between
stops, compared with its capacity (seats and standing room). The loads are averaged by line, pair of stations and
hour, and a ride shows its most crowded section:
| Icons | Occupancy |
|---|
| one person | below 50 % of the capacity |
| two people | 50 to 80 % |
| three people | above 80 % |
The simulation only covers its own area: on lines leaving it, the passengers from outside are missing.
Who the other passengers are
The same simulation describes the people on board with you: age, sex, employment, trip purpose, travelcard, car
availability, income and type of home municipality, in the morning peak (06:00–09:00), the evening peak
(16:00–19:00) or off-peak. Each bar is compared with all public transport in the same period. When fewer than 30
simulated people are found, the search widens to the whole day, then to the whole line. These are simulated people,
not real passengers.
Tracks and zones
Trains are drawn along the rail lines of the SBB
(Linie mit Polygon),
buses along the routes of the eqasim-switzerland network, and the other vehicles as straight lines. The fare zones
are drawn from the map of the fare networks
(Tarifverbundkarte)
and the zones of the stops.
Sources