Swiss rail travel reaches a third consecutive annual record

Swiss rail passengers covered almost 24 billion passenger-kilometres in 2025, setting a third consecutive annual record and extending the sector's recovery after the Covid-19 shock. The figure measures the distance travelled by all passengers combined, offering a broad view of how heavily people used the rail network.

Federal public-transport statistics show that passenger-kilometres rose 3% compared with 2024. The result places rail travel above its previous annual highs and confirms that demand has continued to rebuild since the steep fall during the pandemic.

For people travelling between Swiss cities, commuting into major employment centres or connecting with mountain destinations, the trend points to sustained use of the national rail system. Switzerland's railways form the backbone of a dense public-transport network, linking urban centres with smaller towns and alpine regions.

The latest figures also arrive as mobility patterns remain under close scrutiny. Population growth, commuting habits and the balance between private cars and public transport all shape demand for rail capacity. The federal data provide a national picture rather than a route-by-route ranking, but the headline is clear: more passengers used trains, and they travelled more collectively, in 2025 than in any previous year recorded in the series.

The number of rail journeys reached 675 million in 2025, rising 4% in a single year. That increase was the main engine behind the record total, while the average journey became only slightly longer.

Passengers travelled an average distance that was about 1% higher than in 2024. The gap between the growth in journeys and the growth in average distance matters. It indicates that the record was built primarily through more frequent use of trains, rather than a sharp shift towards longer cross-country trips.

A person taking an additional short or medium-distance journey contributes to the journey count, while the combined distance covered by every passenger determines the passenger-kilometre total. Taken together, the measures show a rail system used more often across the year and not simply for a handful of longer excursions.

The data do not identify individual motives for travel. They cannot, on their own, separate commuting from leisure, business travel or tourism. They do establish the scale of demand: Swiss passengers made hundreds of millions of journeys in one year, and the increase outpaced the rise in the country's population.

Rail journeys grew four times faster than Switzerland's population in 2025. The population increased by almost 1%, reaching 9.1 million, while the number of journeys climbed by 4%.

That comparison shows that the record cannot be explained by demographic growth alone. On average, the existing population used trains more frequently, or a larger share of residents returned to rail for regular and occasional travel. The figures do not reveal how usage was distributed among residents, visitors and different passenger groups, so they should not be read as a measure of individual travel frequency.

They do, however, describe a national transport system absorbing rising demand. More journeys place pressure on rolling stock, stations, platforms and connections, particularly at peak times. Switzerland's timetable relies on closely coordinated transfers, which makes capacity and reliability important as passenger volumes expand.

The federal statistics also capture the wider public-transport landscape. Their coverage includes conventional railways, cog railways, trams, trolleybuses, buses, funiculars, cable cars, passenger ships and car ferries. Passenger-kilometre totals are not fully available for all of these modes, so the almost 24 billion figure should be understood specifically in the context of rail travel.

The 2025 record gives Swiss transport planners a larger demand base to manage. Three consecutive annual records show that the post-pandemic rebound has developed into a sustained period of high rail use, according to federal statistics.

The figures do not forecast what will happen next, and they do not provide a breakdown by canton, route or passenger purpose. They also do not show whether every part of the network experienced the same increase. Those limits matter when assessing where additional services, longer trains or station upgrades may be needed.

Even so, the national trend carries practical consequences. A 4% increase in journeys can affect peak-hour capacity, interchange times and demand for connections throughout the day. The 3% rise in passenger-kilometres confirms that the pressure extends beyond local trips and includes travel across the wider rail network.

The Federal Statistical Office's public-transport data offer the baseline for tracking these changes. Future releases will show whether the record becomes a new plateau or another step in the recovery. For now, Switzerland enters the next phase with rail demand at its highest recorded level, powered mainly by passengers choosing to make more journeys.