On Wed, 24 Feb 1999 20:14:39 GMT, Martin.Schrader@t-online.de (Martin
Schrader) wrote:
>Switzerland is not the only country that uses this system, but IMHO
>they were the first to introduce it countrywide.
Wasn't it the scale of the thing? Many bits of many systems had had
interval timetables for years past, but then the Swiss introduced it
on a national basis, on a system that hadn't had it in the past.
Wasn't it about a quarter of a century ago?
Many areas have followed, and one of the consequences of the German
railway reforms has been that several of the Laender have "bought"
this sort of interval service as part of their modernisation of their
railway services.
The main thing is not so much the interval service on the individual
lines, but the integration of the services, so that you regularly (and
reliably) get from oen place to another even when one or several
changes are required.
It does require high operating standards. I note with interst that in
1998 SBB ran 81% of its trains not more than a minute late departing
or arriving, and 95% of all trains did not exceed 4 minutes' lateness.
I should not be surprised if the Dutch manage much the same sort of
reliability. British TOCs wake up and take note!
John Gough
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The context for that messages is the below. At Swiss (and German, and
Dutch, and ...) rail stations, the trains _AND BUSES_ arrive
punctually on the half-hour (or whatever), everybody transfers from
the one to the other, and all the services go on their way. Muni
claims to make this work for Owl service only, but I've been
unpleasantly surprised even then... And let's not get into MMX
service, where Muni trains habitually arrive five minutes after (and
55 minutes before the next) Caltrain leaves.
From: Martin.Schrader@t-online.de (Martin Schrader)
Subject: Re: Swiss Taktfahrplan - what is it?
Newsgroups: misc.transport.rail.europe
Date: Wed, 24 Feb 1999 20:14:39 GMT
Organization: Warum sollte man sich denn organisieren?
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Am Wed, 24 Feb 1999 18:22:31 -0000 schrieb "Richard Hadden"
<rtah@angliaenterprise.com>:
>Somebody in uk.railway kept talking about such a thing. I was determined not
>to be curious about it, but dammit I am! Does anybody know what it is and
>why it is another shining example of Swiss transport efficiency? What does
>meaning does "Takt" give to a timetable?
"Takt" in connection with timetables means trains running on fixed
intervals, for example every 30 minutes or every hour. So, when there
is a "Taktfahrplan" in use you just have to know that the train from A
to B runs every hour at minute xx.
Another advantage: In the bigger stations (for example Zürich) trains
from all directions arrive at the end of an hour and at the begin of
the next hour they depart to all these directions, so at these "hubs"
you have good connections from and to all directions every hour.
Switzerland is not the only country that uses this system, but IMHO
they were the first to introduce it countrywide.
An example for the opposite is France: Here you may be lucky when the
trains on some lines run every hour, but even if they do so, they have
different times every hour. On many branch lines they still use the
"traditional" system: Some trains for pupils and commuters in the
morning running to the next big city and returning in the afternoon /
evening - and that's it. At these lines you can wait hours for the
next train.
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