Public transport: 2.67 million departures on a weekday, municipality by municipality

Service measured across the country’s 2’110 municipalities

On an ordinary Tuesday, the official 2026 timetable schedules 2’671’020 public transport departures in Switzerland. This total adds up every planned call of a train, bus, tram, boat or cable car at a stop in the country. Civiora then allocated these departures to Switzerland’s 2’110 municipalities to measure the level of service in each.

Service reaches 2’066 of the 2’110 municipalities, or 98 % of the country’s total. Each of them records at least one departure on Tuesday 8 September 2026, the reference day chosen by Civiora. Conversely, 44 municipalities have no scheduled service that day, around 2 % of the total.

A “departure” is a scheduled call of a train, bus, tram, boat or cable car at a stop located within the municipality. Civiora counted these departures in the official 2026 timetable published on opentransportdata.swiss, the Confederation’s platform, for two reference days: Tuesday 8 September and Sunday 13 September 2026.

Zurich far ahead of the other major cities

With 223’827 departures on a Tuesday, Zurich alone concentrates around 8 % of the national offer. The city counts two and a half times as many as Basel, second in the ranking with 89’350 departures. The gap between the top two thus exceeds 134’000 departures over a single day.

Geneva ranks third with 85’224 departures for 209’061 residents. Lausanne follows with 76’877 departures: less populous than Geneva, with 144’873 residents, it counts only around 8’300 fewer. Bern completes the leading group with 73’500 departures for 137’995 residents.

Three cities round out the top 8: Lucerne with 50’090 departures for 86’234 residents, St. Gallen with 46’616 for 78’863 residents, and Winterthur with 44’329 for 120’376 residents. Together, these eight municipalities account for nearly 690’000 departures, around a quarter of the national total.

Relative to population, Flims comes first

The Graubünden municipality of Flims records 24’299 departures for 2’902 residents, more than eight departures per resident in a single day. No major city comes close to that ratio: in Zurich, it works out at roughly one departure for every two residents. Measured per resident, the ranking is thus turned on its head.

Small Alpine municipalities occupy the top places in this per-resident ranking:

• Flims (GR): 24’299 departures for 2’902 residents;
• Laax (GR): 5’738 departures for 2’102 residents;
• Hasliberg (BE): 2’343 departures for 1’129 residents;
• Grindelwald (BE): 7’779 departures for 3’930 residents;
• Lauterbrunnen (BE): 3’914 departures for 2’331 residents.

The result follows from the definition used: the official timetable also covers cable cars, boats and local buses, counted as departures in the same way as trains. The scheduled service in these municipalities therefore far exceeds what their resident population alone would suggest.

On Sundays, the offer shrinks by around a third

On Sunday 13 September 2026, the timetable schedules 1’777’802 departures across the country, against 2’671’020 on the Tuesday. The difference comes to nearly 900’000 departures, a drop of around a third between the weekday and the Sunday. The reference Tuesday thus counts roughly one and a half times as many departures as the reference Sunday.

Both days come from the same annual timetable: they describe the planned offer, not the actual number of passengers on board. Tuesday 8 September 2026 serves as the reference weekday; Sunday 13 September 2026 plays the same role for the weekend. These two reference days form the basis of Civiora’s methodology.

Every municipality has its own detailed page

On Civiora, the page for each of the 2’110 municipalities shows its number of departures on the reference Tuesday and the reference Sunday. The gap between weekday and Sunday service appears municipality by municipality. The comparison tool places the service of any two municipalities side by side, whatever their canton, and relates it to their population.

These counts are based on the 2026 annual timetable published by the Confederation on opentransportdata.swiss. When the next official timetable appears, Civiora will recalculate all 2’110 municipal pages for two new reference days, a Tuesday and a Sunday comparable to those of 2026.