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CFF mobile ticketing is one of several changes boosting Swiss rail traveler numbers

Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Discounted tickets, a new venture by the Swiss rail company  starting in May 2009, appear to have paid off: the company says that 60,000 people took advantage of the tickets, designed to encourage people who are not regular users to discover the Swiss rail system. Half of them used the train during non-peak hours to take advantage of bargain prices, a boon particularly to tourist lines. The CFF plans to offer another discount promotion starting in October. The figures were part of the financial results published Thursday 10 September by the company, which show a surprising 26.8 percent increase in turnover, given the economic climate, of CHF132.8 million.

The company calls the results “heartening” but warns that it will still need government aid to for heavy investments that are needed to replace rolling stock and improve the state of its pension fund: CHF20 billion for new material up to 2030 and for the next 10 years CHF100 million a year is needed for the pension fund.

Cost-cutting on the order of CHF201m to allay the impact of the economic downturn paid off, allowing the CFF to cope with a 16.2 percent fall in freight traffic, to CHF435m. Hardest hit was transit traffic, down more than 23 percent. The CFF’s cost-cutting measures were taken early enough to allow it to avoid laying off any staff among its 27,910 employees, the company notes.

The number of passengers continues to climb, up 4.3 percent over the same period in 2008, with the number of people taking a general subscription up more than 8 percent. Punctuality improved, with 88.2 percent of passengers arriving within three minutes of their scheduled time, up from 86.2 percent a year earlier.