Three years of S-Bahn Zürich

The success of the Swiss Railways is due to a close confidential relationship between the population and the railway. For the last 90 years, the railway has not been the railway of the government, but the railway of all the Swiss. It has built up its reputation by reliability, a solid service to customers before and during journeys, as well as for good commercial husbandry. Contrary to Germany and France, this was not achieved by conversions of individual lines, but by introduction of a completely new timetable plan right after the inauguration of the new large diameter tunnel line, of some 12 Kilometre (km), below the city of Zurich. The role of the traffic community in regard to the individual autonomous transport company is to order services, but also to pay the company for their costs. A political objective was to encourage a shift from the road towards public transportation.