Co-Hosting Partners
Additional Partners:
Seamless Bay Area partnered with Caltrans, LA Metro, Southern California Association of Governments, Stanford University’s Bill Lane Center, and others, to bring best practices from Switzerland’s seamless transit system to North America. California transportation professionals and policymakers were invited to participate in a unique conference focused on expanding understanding of best practices from Switzerland’s highly effective public transportation ecosystem and identifying steps to apply them in California.
This conference had been developed specifically for California elected leaders and professionals. Participation was limited to approximately 100 individuals from across California, representing transit agencies, state agencies, non-profit groups, and elected officials. The program was organized by Seamless Bay Area (see below for more information); co-hosting partners included LA Metro, Southern California Association of Governments, Stanford University’s Bill Lane Center, and Caltrans. Other partners included the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, SPUR, the University of California Institute for Transportation Studies, FAIRTIQ, and the Consulate General of Switzerland in San Francisco.
Four 2-Hour Sessions
The conference featured eight hours of interactive virtual conference sessions, organized into four 2-hour sessions, occurring on February 1, 8, and 22, plus one day in March. At the first three sessions, participants got direct access to Swiss transportation experts, presenting virtually from Switzerland, on a range of topics including integrated service planning, customer experience, payment, mobility-as-a service, fleet management, and other topics. The Swiss experts came from a variety of Swiss authorities including relevant national organizations, regional transport associations, and private Swiss transportation companies.
A fourth session brought together a subset of the California participants based on geography (separate sessions were held for Northern and Southern California participants) to distill pertinent learnings, action items, and next steps to be incorporated into a final report.
The main conference sessions took place virtually between 8-10am PST (15h-17h Switzerland) on:
February 1, 2022 (session recording, session recap)
February 8, 2022 (session recording, session recap)
February 22, 2022 (session recording, session recap)
The fourth session took place for different subsets of participants on the following dates:
March 1, 2022 | 8-10am PST: Fourth session follow-up workshop with SCAG participants
March 2, 2022 | 9-11am PST: Fourth session follow-up workshop with LA Metro participants
March 4, 2022 | 9:30-11:30am PST: Fourth session follow-up workshop with Northern California participants (in person in San Francisco)
The conference agenda can be found here. The attendee portal can be found here.
Objectives
Participants in the conference gained an understanding of:
How state, regional and local levels of government can create a structure for transit delivery excellence in a complex and decentralized regulatory environment
The respective roles of legislators, different levels of government, and local public and private delivery agents in promoting transit integration and delivering seamlessness
The evolution of ‘how to get there’; the reforms and new technologies that enabled Switzerland to develop the highly integrated system it has today
Funding needs, challenges and potential solutions
Examples of supportive legislative and regulatory actions
Why Switzerland?
Switzerland has a fully integrated, high ridership public transport system in which schedules are coordinated at the national level for a population of approximately 9 million, and national, regional and local fare products are designed to meet a wide range of needs, offering riders a seamless experience. It does this while maintaining a high degree of local independence, with a range of national, regional and local funding sources and independent operators. The Swiss system of coordination has been identified in the California State Rail Plan as a model for California.
Agencies who Provided Swiss Expert Speakers
