Swiss soldiers travel on Swiss trains for free when on duty (photo: Morges station, November 2011)
BERN, SWITZERLAND – The 2012 train schedule that goes into effect 11 December will offer travellers better connections for trips abroad. Some parts of the Lake Geneva region will also see improvements. But the best news for many working travellers is that mobile connections are being improved, as is the online sales service.
The CFF rail company presented highlights of the new schedule to the press Thursday 17 November.
You’ll be able to plug in and connect better in 2012
All the new trains will have electric plugs and existing intercity trains will also get them. “All the new Duplex trains on the intercity trains will be equipped with WLAN,” says Jeannine Pilloud.
A major improvement could be the installation of equipment that amplifies signals received inside and outside the train cars, giving better access to the cell phone and Internet network.
1.8 million cell phone tickets ordered and number growing
The CFF app for ordering online tickets via cell phone is proving popular, with 1.8 million users since it was introduced in 2010, and the number is growing steadily, says the rail company.
Users of the small pocket timetables will find that some of the international ones are disappearing, in favour of online information, and that smaller stations’ stops are no longer listed, but are incorporated into regional listings. All details will be available online, however.
French-speaking Switzerland, especially commuters, to see significant improvements
A host of changes for trains in the Lake Geneva region will have a significant impact:
More double-decker trains will be used on the Geneva airport/Lucerne line, offering more seats
An additional InterRegio train will run between Neuchatel and Lausanne at 07:53 and the Neuchatel/La Chaux-de-Fonds/Le Locle line will have additional service during rush hour and a pair of trains is being added to the Neuchatel to Bienne line
Canton Vaud: the S4 line is being extended from Morges to Allaman, stopping in Saint Prex and Etoy, which will now have trains every 30 minutes instead of once an hour, Monday to Friday.
Geneva: La Plaine/Geneva, more trains will run during rush hour. Coppet–Geneva–Lancy-Pont-Rouge trains, the 30-minute schedule is being extended for weekend night and trains will run every half hour on Fridays and Saturdays until the end of the day.
New international connections, travel time cut on major links
screen shots, new "my weather" worldwide service (source: Apple iTunes)
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the Hong Kong Observatory launched a new mobile app, “my weather”, Monday 10 October, designed to help travellers quickly find the official weather report for their area, anywhere in the world.
The new app features the World Weather Information Service (WWIS) and is the world’s first-ever location-specific weather service providing official city weather forecasts around the world for people on the move, says Geneva-based WMO.
The free app has location-based technology that detects the user’s location and it automatically displays the latest official weather forecasts and climatological information of the city nearest to the user.
“It provides a quick search function that allows users to obtain the latest official weather information from over 1,400 cities around the world. The application also enables users to create bookmarks for easy access to weather forecasts for cities of their choice in the future,” according to WMO.
The new app can be downloaded at http://itunes.apple.com/
Ed. note: I just downloaded and used it – up came Swiss, Italian and German cities, since it uses cities in a 200km range. Weather forecast is equally gloomy in all areas.
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Blame or thank the sun: hot weather in June and July caused a serious case of heatstroke, but not to people: the pricey new radar system on the A9 autoroute in Vaud, near the border with Valais, didn’t function as well as expected because of the impact of high temperatures on the box. The test period was therefore extended, to the end of August.
Next week the operational phase starts, 1 September, and with it will come speeding fines based on the mobile radar system’s readings of a driver’s average speed between Bex and Aigle.
The new ANPR system is being tested in Vaud and the A2 Arisdorf tunnel with the idea that the radars will cut the number of speeders and thus accidents, but they will also improve traffic flow. They costs CHF400,000, at least twice as much as a traditional radar.
Geneva Cointrin Airport's new mobile terminal
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Cointrin Airport in Geneva inaugurated its trial mobile check-in desk Wednesday 9 February, to meet unexpected or sudden increases in traffic due to delays or other problems.
The new unit is easy to assemble and take apart, so it can be moved around the airport relatively quickly.
The new, heated unit is currently on the city side of the airport, on the departures level. It will be tested for the rest of the winter season, but will be taken down by 31 May at the latest, according to the federal permit it has been given.
Heated, with a metallic outside, the new mobile terminal has all the connections of an annex to the main Geneva airport terminal
Winter, the airport’s busiest season, is the time of greatest unpredictability and therefore the risk is highest that passenger traffic will hit snags.
Vaud A9 and mobile ANPR radars next, for spring
Basel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Basel on Thursday 13 January becomes home to Switzerland’s first tunnel speed radar system that calculates the average time over a distance rather than taking a snapshot of a car’s speed at one point. The new ANPR (automatic number plate recognitino) average speed system, or CTV as it’s called in French for contrôle de vitesse par tronçon, will become operational on the A2 autoroute in the Arisdorf tunnel. The sophisticated radar system identifies different vehicle types and calculates the average speed over a section to see if the bus or truck or car is respecting the speed for that kind of vehicle. Speed limits are adjusted automatically to reflect traffic conditions and a dynamic signage system will will work in tandem with the speed radar.
Arisdorf, near Basel, Switzerland: new average speed radars in 2011
Italy, Austria and The Netherlands use average pseed systems and report that the number of deaths due to speeding has been nearly halved. The UK uses similar systems, notably in Scotland.
The Swiss system has undergone several months of testing. The results of the first months in full operation will be analyzed in August 2011, along with results from an automatic speed radar to be installed on the A9 in Vaud in sprng and one mobile radar that will go into use at the same time. The highway department says it will inform motorists when and where the radars are being put in place.
Expect delays says Swisscom
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Swisscom mobile customers who use the Internet may experience “impaired service” in the next few hours, says the company. Its mobile data network was interrupted for several hours Monday, starting at 07:30 when a fault occurred on Swisscom’s GPRS network while maintenance work was being done.
About half of the customers had service again by 14:00, with the rest functioning by 17:30. The company noted that the mobile Internet service had to be restarted during the morning, causing interruptions in mobile data traffic.
On a normal day, Swisscom notes, several hundred thousand customers make use of mobile Internet services. The resumption of traffic meant that “an increase in data traffic is expected over the next few hours,” it said Monday evening, “which could lead to impaired service.
“The disturbance affected all mobile services requiring an Internet connection, from surfing the Internet to sending and receiving MMS messages and e-mails. Telephone services via the mobile network, the sending and receiving of SMS messages and connections to the fixed network (telephony, Internet, Swisscom TV) were not affected.
Swisstopo's iPhone Swiss map app
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Swiss federal government’s mapmaking enterprise, Swisstopo, has won the country’s 2009 mapmaking award for its iPhone application that allows users to access maps for the entire country at these scales: 1:25 000, 1:100 000, 1:500 000 and 1:1 million. Swisstopo will now represent Switzerland at the International Cartographers Associaton awards in Santiago Chile 15 November.
Lower calling rates, sweet news!
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Mobile phone owners in Switzerland should expect to see the cost of using their phones fall, thanks to a significant cut in basic prices that Swisscom can charge its competitors.
