Swiss public transport will not meet disability access deadline

© Keystone / Christian Beutler

With the deadline fixed for the end of the year, only three out of five train stations and a third of bus and tram stops have been adapted.

Public transport in Switzerland has until the end of 2023 to become barrier-free accessible to people with disabilities, as required by law.  Despite some progress, public transport companies, cantons, towns and municipalities are not ready “because of the complexity and scale of the task”, their umbrella organisations emphasised in Bern on Friday. The Law on Equality for People with Disabilities came into force on January 1, 2004.

+ Swiss citizens with disabilities push for political rights

For buses and trams, a third of the more than 23,000 stops in Switzerland will be compliant by the end of 2023. On the railways, around 60% of stations will be barrier-free, benefiting some 80% of rail passengers.

There are many reasons for these delays, often linked to funding. Alternative or transitional measures will be proposed, in the form of staff assistance or shuttles, for example.

How we work

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. You can find them here. 

If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to [e-mail].