
Transport and infrastructure in Switzerland
Our listing of the primary types of transport compares the infrastructure of Switzerland with the average of all countries in Europe. Overall, the traffic routes are above average and in good condition.In terms of the length of its rail network, Switzerland ranks 43rd in the world with 0.37 meters per inhabitant. In total, the rail network is 3,236 kilometers long. Freight traffic on the rails most recently totaled 12.02 billion tons and kilometers traveled. Passenger traffic reached 14.31 billion passenger-kilometers in 2021.
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Road traffic
The network of roads and highways has a total length of 71,557 km. For each of the country's 8.70 million inhabitants, this corresponds to 8.22 meters. This puts Switzerland in 66th place in the global ranking. However, the country's size and population density of around 211 inhabitants per km² must also be taken into account. Countries with fewer inhabitants in the same or even larger area naturally achieve quite different values here and have to connect remote areas to the transport network despite a smaller population.With an average of 242 traffic fatalities per year (2013 - 2019), road traffic in Switzerland is considered very safe. This corresponds to 2.9 accident fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants per year. By comparison, this figure is 12.3 in the USA and 17.0 worldwide.

Switzerland | |||
total | per 1 mio inhabitants | per km² | |
---|---|---|---|
Roadways | 71,600 km | 8,221.72 km | 1,733.02 m |
Railroads | 3,200 km | 371.81 km | 78.37 m |
Waterways | 1,292 km | 148.45 km | 31.29 m |
Commercial harbors | 20 | 2.30 | 0.000 |
Airports | 5 | 0.57 | 0.121 |
Europe | |||
total | per 1 mio inhabitants | per km² | |
---|---|---|---|
Roadways | 6,708,900 km | 11,154.38 km | 1,111.71 m |
Railroads | 258,600 km | 429.97 km | 42.85 m |
Waterways | 54,800 km | 91.17 km | 9.09 m |
Commercial harbors | 15,273 | 25.39 | 0.003 |
Airports | 573 | 0.95 | 0.000 |
Data sources used
• Global Health Observatory Data Repository (World Health Organization)• UNCTAD
• Internation Union of Railways (UIC)
• CIA Factbook
• OECD Statistics
• Wikipedia (german)