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Students use algorithm in bid to visit all 26 Swiss cantons in less than 24 hours…by train

Students from Switzerland's EPFL federal technology institute are this Friday hoping to set a new time record in the Swiss Train Challenge which sees participants trying to step foot in all of the country's 26 cantons in under 24 hours using only public transport.

Published: 7 September 2018 11:10 CEST
Students use algorithm in bid to visit all 26 Swiss cantons in less than 24 hours...by train
Emmanuel Clédat and Dirk Lauinger from the EPFL technology institute. Photo: Alain Herzog/EPFL

The current record for the very Swiss endeavour is 17 hours and 19 minutes set by a team from the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino last year.

Read the latest news on this story here.

That impressive feat came after journalist and Swiss Train Challenge founder Nicolas Rossé set a time of 19 hours and 46 minutes in 2015 – an achievement which came before the 57-kilometre Gotthard Base Tunnel through central Switzerland opened in 2016.

But the team from the EPFL believe they can now go one better. With the help of an algorithm, they think they can make it to each and every canton in just 16 hours and 54 minutes, according to a press release from the technology institute.

To come up with the algorithm for their travel route, the team had to collect data on Switzerland’s 22,080 train stations and bus stops as well details of cantonal borders and the complete public transport timetable.

The trick was then to identify the most useful train stations in terms of connections and find the most efficient way of working in all the cantons.

The students left St. Maurice in the canton of Valais at 5.24am on Friday morning and if all goes according to plan they will pull in at Jakobsbad in Appenzell Innerrhoden at 10.18pm this evening.

But it is not all going to be smooth sailing. Among the challenges is a train transfer time of exactly zero minutes at Alpnachstad in Obwalden.

Read also: Lausanne's EPFL named 'most international university in the world'

“The previous winners had to make the journey twice to set their record. We might also have to make a few trial runs before we reach our goal,” said EPFL PhD student Dirk Lauinger.

If the team do manage to set a new record time, they will have Switzerland's almost miraculous public transport network to thank. It is hard to imagine anywhere else in the world where connections could be counted on enough to complete the task.

Read also: The Swiss train station where drivers keep forgetting to stop

TRAVEL NEWS

Swedish government shelves plans for two fast train links

Sweden's government has called for a halt to planning to faster train links between Gothenburg and Borås and Jönköping and Hässleholm, in a move local politicians have called "a catastrophe".

Published: 23 December 2022 15:53 CET
Swedish government shelves plans for two fast train links

In an announcement slipped out just before Christmas Eve, the government said it had instructed the Swedish Transport Administration to stop all planning for the Borås to Gothenburg link, stop the ongoing work on linking Hässleholm and Lund. 

“The government wants investments made in the railway system to first and foremost make it easier for commuting and cargo traffic, because that promotes jobs and growth,” infrastructure minister Andreas Carlson said in a press release. “Our approach is for all investments in the railways that are made to be more cost effective than if the original plan for new trunk lines was followed.” 

Ulf Olsson, the Social Democrat mayor in Borås, told the TT newswire that the decision was “a catastrophe”. 

“We already have Sweden’s slowest railway, so it’s totally unrealistic to try to build on the existing railway,” he said. We are Sweden’s third biggest commuting region and have no functioning rail system, and to release this the day before Christmas Eve is pretty symptomatic.”

Per Tryding, the deputy chief executive for the Southern Sweden Chamber of Commerce, complained that the decision meant Skåne, Sweden’s most southerly county, would now have no major rail infrastructure projects. 

“Now the only big investment in Skåne which was in the plan is disappearing, and Skåne already lay far behind Gothenburg and Stockholm,” he said.

“This is going to cause real problems and one thing that is certain that it’s going to take a very long time, whatever they eventually decide. It’s extremely strange to want to first suspend everything and then do an analysis instead of doing it the other way around.”  

The government’s instructions to the transport agency will also mean that there will be no further planning on the so-called central parts of the new planned trunk lines, between Linköping and Borås and Hässleholm and Jönköping. 

Carlson said that the government was prioritising “the existing rail network, better road standards, and a build-out of charging infrastructure”.

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