The SBB is one of the major links in the Swiss public transport system, accounting for 87% of rail passenger transport. (Private companies operating on local networks account for the rest.) It carries over 250 million passengers a year on its 3,000 km of track.

Not only does it provide the bulk of rail services within the boundaries of Switzerland, it is also expanding across its borders.

Long distance cross-border traffic

For long distance, the work going on in the context of Rail 2000 and the NEAT is designed to link into trans-European routes. In western Switzerland, which feels sidelined by the alpine project, the SBB is cooperating with French railways, SNCF, to make possible a direct Paris-Milan connection via Geneva. This is so important to Switzerland that under an agreement signed between the two countries in 1999, the Swiss are to pay for half the construction work on the new lines needed to provide Geneva and Lausanne with better links to Paris, even though most of them will be built in France.

Switzerland is contributing 66 million euros for the construction of a new high-speed line between the French cities of Mulhouse and Dijon, part of a route linking Paris and Zurich. In June 2007 the opening of the relevant stretch cut the Paris-Basel journey by 90 minutes to three and a half hours.

On a local level borders are disappearing as transport companies get together to offer an integrated service to international commuters. This is true not only in and around the two major frontier towns of Basel and Geneva, but even the Lake Constance area where there is no comparable city. In each case the SBB is one of the partners.

When the idea of unifying the service round Basel was first put forward in the 1970s, it was laughed out of court. It was not until 1997 that the "Green Line" opened from Mulhouse in France to Frick in Switzerland, operated jointly by the SBB and SNCF. Now several more lines link Basel with Germany as well as France. The need is obvious: 50,000 commuters travel to Basel from across the border every day. Not only trains, but also trams and buses are involved. They all link up, and commuters can change from one to the other, using a single ticket.

But although this is an example of international cooperation, the partners are also in competition with each other. The SBB competed successfully against both the German Railways, (DB) and the Basel urban transport company for the contract to run two regional lines entirely on the German side.

The situation is similar in Geneva, although not so well developed, and the cooperation with the SNCF is not yet as intensive. Plans are underway to develop a regional express service (RER). A connecting tunnel will be built to link French and Swiss lines so that trains can pass straight through from one country to the other. This is a matter of some urgency: at present the vast majority of the thousands of cross-border commuters use their cars and clog up Geneva's road system.

Meanwhile the Unireso tariff system, where the same ticket is valid for different forms of transport, has been extended to include commuter areas over the border in France.

On Lake Constance in the north east, the cooperation involves trains, buses and boats moving between four countries: Switzerland, Germany, Austria and Liechtenstein. The European Union has contributed 17.5 million euros for the project, while the Swiss government has put in 7.4 million.

Plans are also afoot on the southern border, for a line linking Lugano with Varese and Malpensa - Milan's new airport - in Italy. The local authorities on both sides of the border as well as the SBB and Italy's FS support the construction of 7 km of track to link Stabio in Switzerland with Arcisate in Italy to bridge the gap between the two countries. Regional trains have already been running for many years on another cross border line, from Bellinzona to Luino.