More than 50,000 bicycle space reservations already made at PostBus

After an exciting tour in the mountains, a woman is riding her mountain bike to the bus stop, where the Postbus arrives five minutes later. “Perfect timing,” she thinks, lifting her bicycle onto the bicycle trailer before sinking tiredly into her seat. In an ideal world, that’s exactly how this scene would play out.

After an exciting tour in the mountains, a woman is riding her mountain bike to the bus stop, where the Postbus arrives five minutes later. She goes to the bicycle trailer, where she notices that there are no longer any spaces available. The next Postbus won’t leave for another hour. In reality, this unfortunate scene has become increasingly common in recent years. As cycling has grown in popularity, the number of bicycles being transported has risen significantly, meaning that PostBus hasn’t always been able to transport all bicycles as expected.

Enabling a stress-free leisure experience

Our solution is well known: in order to offer our customers a positive leisure experience, we introduced mandatory bicycle reservations on tourist routes in the spring. This rule applies on 130 routes, mainly in the Alpine region. Now that a few months have gone by, it’s time to take stock.

Our first observation is that everyone had to get used to the new system, passengers and drivers alike. Some drivers wanted to be accommodating and occasionally transported bicycles without a reservation, which could then have led to problems a few stops later if passengers with reservations were waiting. Everyone now recognizes that reservations are always required, otherwise the system won’t work.

Almost everyone reserves via app

Our customers have already reserved Postbus spaces for 56,000 bicycles since the start of May. 93 percent used the SBB app on their mobile to place their reservations, while another 4.5 percent used the online shop. This shows that passengers are coping well with the new digital system.

We also asked our customer panel about mandatory reservations for bicycles. 56 percent were in favour, and only 7 percent considered it unnecessary. Just under half of the people surveyed found the fee of 2 francs reasonable. Incidentally, the fact that we charge 2 francs for reservations was the most frequent cause of criticisms sent to our customer service. However, the number of dissatisfied customers who contacted us directly is low. The fee is intended to help avoid multiple reservations, which would lead to unused capacity.

Until the end of October

Reservations are still required until the end of October, when bicycle carriers will be replaced by ski carriers. Then it will be time for us to review the system after its first year. There is certainly room for improvement − for example, the app doesn’t yet show how many free spaces are still available.

Finally, we would like to wish you continued safe travels by bicycle and Postbus and present the ranking of the ten most popular destinations for transporting bicycles via Postbus: