Regionalverkehr Bern-Solothurn RBS ( en, Regional Transport Bern-

Solothurn Solothurn ( , ; french: Soleure ; it, Soletta ; rm, ) is a town, a municipality, and the capital of the canton of Solothurn in Switzerland. It is located in the north-west of Switzerland on the banks of the Aare and on the foot of the Weissens ...

) is a Swiss

public transport Public transport (also known as public transportation, public transit, mass transit, or simply transit) is a system of transport for passengers by group travel systems available for use by the general public unlike private transport, typi ...

company. It operates

train In rail transport, a train (from Old French , from Latin , "to pull, to draw") is a series of connected vehicles that run along a railway track and transport people or freight. Trains are typically pulled or pushed by locomotives (often ...

tram A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport are ...

, and

bus A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a road vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van. It is most commonly used in public transport, but is also in use for cha ...

lines between Bern,

and

Worb Worb is a municipality in the Bern-Mittelland administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. History Worb is first mentioned around 1130-46 as ''Worw''. The oldest traces of settlements in the area include scattered neolith ...

. There had been a desire for a direct connection between Solothurn and Bern since the middle of the nineteenth century, only partly satisfied by the opening of a standard gauge line between Solothurn and Burgdorf by the '' Emmentalbahn'' in 1876. A campaign for a line via

Fraubrunnen Fraubrunnen is a municipality in the Bern-Mittelland administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. On 1 January 2014 the former municipalities of Büren zum Hof, Etzelkofen, Grafenried, Limpach, Mülchi, Schalunen and Zaug ...

finally resulted in a concession granted in 1912 for the ''Elektrische Solothurn-Bern-Bahn (ESB)'' to build a

metre-gauge Metre-gauge railways are narrow-gauge railways with track gauge of or 1 metre. The metre gauge is used in around of tracks around the world. It was used by European colonial powers, such as the French, British and German Empires. In Europe, la ...

line between Solothurn and

Zollikofen Zollikofen is a municipality in the Bern-Mittelland administrative district in the Swiss canton of Bern. It is a suburb of the city of Bern. It is home to the Swiss College of Agriculture (SHL). Geography Zollikofen has an area of . Of th ...

. Here it would connect with the ''Bern-Zollikofen-Bahn'', which had been opened in the same year. The full line was opened on 9 April 1916, but for the first eight years, passengers were obliged to change trains in Zollikofen. Public pressure led to the fusion of the two lines into the ''Solothurn-Zollikofen-Bahn (SZB)'' in 1922. The town of

had been connected to Bern by the ''Bern-Worb-Bahn (BWB)'' in 1898, and the ''Worblentalbahn'' subsequently connected Worb with the villages of the Worble valley, making a connection with the BZB line at Worblaufen. The two lines to Worb fused in 1927 into the ''Vereinigte Bern-Worb-Bahnen (VBW)''. After a series of working agreements in the 1970s, the SZB and the VWB finally merged into the RBS in November 1984 through a series of mergers. 94% of RBS shares are owned by federal, cantonal and local authorities. As of 2006, the company has 361 employees and owns 185 vehicles. It operates on 57 km of track and 61 km of bus lines and transports 23.5 million passengers each year. The subterranean RBS train station in Bern is the country's eighth-largest in terms of passenger usage, with 49,000 people using it on peak days. This heavy usage leads to overcrowding during peak hours. To increase the station's passenger handling capacity and reduce overcrowding, strict rules have been put into place to govern passenger flow. A steady programme of track-doubling has significantly increased track capacity. Planning has already started to increase the size and capacity of the station in terms of passenger flow and number of trains it can handle. In 2009, a 15-minute interval for all lines was planned, which takes the station to the limit of its ability to handle passengers. New 120 km/h train sets have been introduced on the RE line (Bern - Solothurn) to enable running at 15-minute intervals. These sets were made by Stadler Rail AG.

References

Annual report, 2006

External links

* Railway companies of Switzerland Transport companies of Switzerland Metre gauge railways in Switzerland Railway companies established in 1984 Swiss companies established in 1984 Transport companies established in 1984 {{Switzerland-stub