“A journey, a ticket”: that is the motto ofSwissPass Alliance. The new organization of the public transport sector, active since January 1, has around 250 transport companies and all 17 regional fare communities in Switzerland.
The new organization offers its customers, via the Nova app, to have a single ticket that applies to the whole country. Until now, travelers had to buy multiple tickets depending on the fare zone they were in.
Alliance SwissPass aims above all to harmonize the pricing provisions and to simplify access to public transport. “The aim is to have a consistent pricing logic,” said Bernard Guillelmon, vice-president of the Strategic Council of the SwissPass Alliance and managing director of BLS, on RTS radio.
Bringing two worlds together
The new organization brings together two hitherto largely separate worlds: the national tariff organization ch-direct and the regional communities. The tariff communities, which have created a regional identity, will need some flexibility in pricing, especially since regional traffic is paid for half by the cantons and the communes, underlined Andreas Büttiker, member of the Strategic Council of the SwissPass Alliance at a press conference in Bern on Tuesday.
This autonomy will continue to exist. “The decisions for each region remain in the region,” said Helmut Eichhorn, Managing Director of Alliance SwissPass.
Almost 40% of total revenue from Swiss public transport is generated by regional fare communities. There are more than one million annual subscriptions and approximately 4.7 million monthly subscriptions in these rate communities. By way of comparison: around 500,000 general subscriptions are sold each year.
A simple ticket
For Bernard Guillelmon, the general subscription has a future. “The Swiss like subscriptions. Rather, it’s the simple ticket that is problematic, “he said. “We cannot, for example, force a pricing community to have discounted prices. But we can make sure that if there are discounted prices, they are in the same logic everywhere, “said the official.
The ticket offices will certainly remain, continued Bernard Guillelmon. “Part of the population will still want advice and paper tickets, but the sale of digital tickets will continue to increase.”
–
