Indian Rail To take a page from the Swiss railways’ book? Planning to cooperate with Indian Railways swiss railways Learning from their best practices and processes, including hub and spoke models tunneling technologyAccording to Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav,
In a recent interview with PTI at the World Economic Forum annual meeting, the minister highlighted learning opportunities and collaboration potential with Switzerland in both modern and traditional technologies.
He emphasized the valuable insights gained from meetings with senior Swiss railway officials and policy makers, where the focus was on tunneling technology. The minister praised Switzerland’s expertise in this field, citing the 57-km Gotthard Tunnel, the world’s longest. Additionally, he appreciated Switzerland’s well-developed track technology, especially the “interesting” structure of their tracks.
Minister Ashwini Vaishnav looked at an important aspect of Switzerland’s railway network, highlighting its hub-and-spoke design. In this model, several trains converge at a central hub such as Zurich, allowing passengers to easily switch to other trains departing at the same time.

This approach is different from India’s emphasis on end-to-end connectivity, which connects distant cities like Bhagalpur to Bengaluru or Kolkata to Chennai, Vaishnav said. Switzerland, on the other hand, employs six hubs with multiple connecting spokes, emphasizing synchronized arrivals and departures for efficient turnaround. What is the focus of their network planning Hub-and-spoke modelAs opposed to end-to-end connectivity.
The Minister talked about the opportunity for learning and cooperation with Swiss Railways through an MoU. He appreciated Switzerland’s efficient inter-connectivity between various public transport modes including trains, buses, cable cars and metro. Passengers enjoy seamless travel in these modes by using common cards or tickets. Switzerland boasts a dense railway network spanning 5,200 kilometres, which is predominantly electrified, except for tourism-focused steam locomotives in some areas.

Recently, Indian Railways also took inspiration from the Japanese “7-minute cleaning miracle”, in which trains in Japan are cleaned in a record 7 minutes after arrival in preparation for the next round of travel. On October 1, 2023, Indian Railways had launched its own version of this efficient cleaning service with a 14-minute cleaning miracle for Vande Bharat Express trains.