Brief Review

Infrastructure

Switzerland's main airport is located at Kloten, just outside Zurich, handling not only the most passengers, but also 75 percent of the country’s air freight. There are also major airports near Geneva (Cointrin) and Basel (Euroairport). Both of these airports extend into French territory. Bern and Lugano have smaller airports from which flights can be taken to a number of European cities. There are additionally numerous small civilian airports all over Switzerland.

As of 2005, Switzerland had 1,756 km of motorway, one of the most dense road networks in Europe. According to the Swiss Federal Statistics Office, car ownership is increasing. In 2006 for every 1000 people there were 516 passenger cars, well above the European average. Private cars accounted for two thirds of passenger kilometres.

The Swiss railway network is a model of punctuality and precision and is very dense, with 122 km of track on average for every 1000 km2, compared to an EU average of 46 km. The Swiss are by far Europe's keenest rail users. More than 341,000 people have a general season ticket, valid for most public transport services, and more than two million have a half-price season ticket. Both numbers are on the rise. The only country in the world rivalling Switzerland for train use is Japan. The Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) alone carried some 285 million passengers and about 60 million tonnes of freight in 2006. In addition to the SBB, Switzerland also has a number of private railways, who operate a network totalling just over 2,000 km.