The new timetable will come into force on 15 December 2024, the swiss federal railways continue to adapt their rail services across the country on major national and European routes, as well as regional traffic.
SBB has made a special effort to help the French-speaking part of the country. For several years now, the cantons of French-speaking Switzerland have felt sacrificed when it comes to changing train timetables.
French-speaking Switzerland will therefore be the venue for the biggest timetable change since the introduction of Rail 2000 in December 2004. It has the dual aim of improving punctuality and enabling the many construction works associated with the maintenance and extension of the rail network to be carried out.
The new timetable for French-speaking Switzerland will certainly result in some longer journey times. But the aim is to make trains more punctual in future.
Renens station will become a mainline transfer station.. For passengers travelling from the Jura to Geneva, Renens will become a changeover station, as a large proportion of trains will now have a final stop in Lausanne. The change at Renens will ensure a connection every half-hour to Geneva. In addition, several direct trains will run daily between Geneva Airport and Neuchâtel.
Direct services between the German-speaking part of Switzerland and Geneva will continue to run on a regular timetable. The new timetable for French-speaking Switzerland will also bring many changes to regional traffic, with more trains. The SBB website "Timetable 25: a new timetable for Western Switzerland gives full details of the impact of the 2025 timetable for the various cantons.
Delays and changes to routes to France by the end of 2025
Other new services in French-speaking Switzerland include night trains between Biel and Genève-Aéroport and between Fribourg/Sion and Genève-Aéroport at several weekends and during school holidays. There will also be the launch of a weekly direct service from Geneva Airport to Ticinothe Italian part of Switzerland. This line will provide a service to Locarno via Bern.
Finally, to FranceSBB is planning a reduced number of TGV Lyria services due to track renovation work north of Dijon, probably from 1 September to 5 December 2025.. In particular, they will affect the following lines Lausanne-Paris and Zurich-Paris. To Zurich, SBB will be offering services via Strasbourg. But these will cause delays.
It should also be noted that as soon as the timetable changes on 14 December, international journeys booked in one go with SBB will be considered as a single journeyThis means that if a train is late for part of the journey, the delay on arrival will be taken into account for compensation purposes. This means that if a train is late for part of the journey, it will now be the delay on arrival that will be taken into account for compensation purposes. This compensation will then cover the entire journey, and not just on the part concerned.
