An open blog post to @sbbnews

Now let’s make this clear – this is not an attempt to compare cost per mile or anything related to the fare itself. It is a simple expression of complete frustration at the total confusion caused by the booking system of a network I know and love.

I have visited Swizterland many times, and have always travelled by train, usually taking advantage of one of the four day Swiss travel passes to continue across the country. In Switzerland, the rail network is a natural extension of the flight, as the two main airports of Geneva and Zurich are not just connected to their respective city centres, but also to a huge selection of destinations beyond.

The fact that the Swiss travel network is so well integrated needs little introduction – the trains are really just the start, with onward links provided by bus, ship and even cable car, although these often require a supplement, as do many of the scenic mountain lines.

So what have they done now to incur my wrath? I am trying to do a simple comparison of some onward journeys by rail, just looking at connections between major cities like Geneva and Zurich. I said last week that trying to get public transport information from UK public transport website Transport Direct was like having teeth extracted. Trying to book a train with Swiss Railways is like having your face smashed in, and then going to the dentist for repair work.

Here’s my list of gripes:

• Try booking a ‘supersaver’ ticket – firstly, you can only do so upto 15 days in advance, not much good for someone planning a holiday. Surely these fares are supposed to encourage early booking?
• No way of finding the best fare, just trawl through different times and see what comes up.
• Double up! Clicking through to the supersaver price includes the standard price in the basket – e.g. Basel to Bern discounted CHF 15.20 (approx. £10) + Standard CHF 38.00, gives a total of CHF 52.40 – why would anyone buy two tickets for the same train?
• ‘Almost free of charge’ supersaver tickets – sounds like Ryanair again, but we’re initially only offered sample prices to Lucerne. Eventually a sample price from Geneva to Zurich is offered at CHF 28 – with the best price found being nearly twice that.
• Zurich and Basel confusion – now I know enough German to understand that HB stands for Hauptbahnhof or Grand Central, but most users would not. I also understand that the SBB in ‘Basel SBB’ stands for Swiss Railways, as opposed to the side of the station that serves France. Again, I would not expect most users to understand this geographical quirk, unless they had been there. We are also lazy, so we type ‘Zurich’, not ‘Zürich’ or Zuerich – after all, the menu does at least start in English.
  
• Enter name and date of birth. Why on earth should I give these details just to get a price quote? And again, the British way of writing dates is with forward slashes, not dots – not that we should dictate this to our European cousins, but an intelligent system should either not ask in the first place, offer a drop down, or understand both.
• No indication of train type (minor gripe). This is more of a geeky personal preference, but some of the mainline services, for example between Zurich and Milan, feature some impressive mountainous sections, which are much more enjoyable when onboard a tilting train. The only was of knowing which trains are tilting is to see if bikes are not conveyed – as the ETR 470 sets don’t take them.
• Other fees? I haven’t even got to whether or not there is a credit card fee, service charge or booking fee, as most users would be long gone by now.

Note: Isn’t this all a bit Anglo-centric? After all, Switzerland has 4 official languages, none of which is English?

A Swiss visitor to the UK could indeed quite rightly complain that Virgin Trains or any other operating company don’t offer them the opportunity to book in German or French – and as for Italian or Romansh!

Yet, like it or not, English is the language of international travel. Of course, speaking the local lingo in any destination is always a big bonus, but it helps to have a website which helps you get there in the first place.

In that respect, I’m afraid SBB.ch is a total fail.