Switzerland is often ranked the best when it comes to Europe as a whole, but what about the EU separately?
A debate has erupted online after Spain’s transport minister Óscar Puente claimed that his country has the second-most punctual mid and long-distance trains in Europe.
“Our punctuality ratio, the punctuality ratio of Renfe [Spain’s national state-owned railway company], is the second-highest in Europe, after the Swiss company and far ahead of Germany, Italy or France, which have punctuality rates inferior to ours,” he said on 4 September.
It’s true that non-EU member Switzerland consistently ranks as having some of the most reliable trains on the continent, according to various reports and travel companies that rank services based on their own criteria.
In a recent survey by campaign group Transport & Environment, for example, the Swiss Federal Railways Company came in first for reliability among rail operators in Europe, alongside Dutch railway operator Nederlandse Spoorwegen and just ahead of Belgium’s SNCB and Spain’s Renfe. Italy’s Trenitalia ranked best overall when criteria such as ticket prices and booking experience were also taken into account.
The European Commission, however, also collects its own data on the punctuality of EU countries’ train services, although it notes that different definitions of punctuality apply in member states, making it hard to fully compare each country.
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