During an event in Zürich on November 23, German Rail (DB), French National Railways (SNCF), Italian State Railways (FS) operating subsidiary Trenitalia, Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) and Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) outlined plans to increase capacity with bigger fleets and additional services.
SBB says that demand for travel to international destinations rose by around 10% from January to September compared with the same period last year. The increase in available services, along with the increasing importance of sustainable transport offers, has also contributed to the strong increases in demand for rail travel.
SBB says it has been pushing for stronger cooperation between operators for years, and DB, SNCF and Trenitalia have now decided to further expand their cooperation for international daily connections. Working with ÖBB, SBB also intends to further develop night train services to and from Switzerland.
DB will begin operating trains along the Hamburg - Basel - Zurich - Chur route with the new ICE 4 fleet from December, followed by the Berlin - Basel - Bern - Interlaken route from June, increasing capacity across the 40 daily connections by 20%. The services are already used by 4.3 million passengers a year.
The ICE 4 will offer free Wi-Fi, its ICE Portal on-board entertainment service, and a first-class at-seat catering service.
TGV Lyria will also begin using a fleet of double-deck TGV trains on services from Zurich, Lausanne and Geneva to Paris from December. The new fleet will provide an additional 4500 seats a day, taking the total to 18,000. Passengers will have access to free Wi-Fi and an on-board media portal, while catering will be available to business class passengers.
SBB’s new Giruno trains will begin operating from December on the Gotthard axis to Lugano and Chiasso, with a gradual deployment to Milan taking place next spring. The Giruno is SBB’s first international long-distance train with low-floor access for operations in Italy, Switzerland and Germany, and is also SBB’s first train with gender-separated toilets.
SBB says the extra tickets available will make rail travel more attractively priced compared with other modes of transport such as air and road. SBB is also working to simplify the online ticketing process to make it more user friendly.
SBB and Trenitalia will offer additional connections to Italy from 2021 following the opening of the Ceneri Base Tunnel, which will significantly reduce travel times to Italy.
