What "city transport included" actually means with the Swiss Travel Pass
If you're holding a Swiss Travel Pass, you don't need to buy a ticket to ride a tram in Zurich, a trolleybus in Lucerne or a local boat across the Limmat. It's already yours. And it's not a partial deal either, the pass covers the whole urban network in each town, not a couple of central zones. That means no squinting at a zone map at a ticket machine, no counting stops, no working out which zone your hotel falls in.
Over 90 towns and cities are included. The big ones you'll probably pass through:
- Zurich
- Geneva
- Bern
- Basel
- Lucerne
- Lausanne
- Lugano
- St Gallen
Trams, buses, trolleybuses, postbuses and local boats all count. So if you fancy a short hop on Lake Zurich or a ride down the Limmat on a summer evening, that costs you nothing extra.
Do night buses count on the Swiss Travel Pass?
Yes, night services are covered on the same terms as daytime ones. If you're heading back from dinner in Bern at half past one in the morning, you board the same way you would at midday. No surcharge to sort out, no separate night ticket to hunt for. Worth knowing before you talk yourself into an expensive taxi.
City transport costs without a pass
Buying as you go, you're looking at roughly CHF 12 a day for city transport. Two people, four days in cities, and that's close to CHF 100 you've spent on tickets you were already carrying. This is the quiet part of the pass that gets forgotten, everyone remembers the trains and the mountain excursions, then queues at a tram machine anyway.
Metros, funiculars and cog railways that count as city transport
Lausanne's M2 metro
The M2 is treated as city transport, so it's included. Handy, because Lausanne is built on a hill and the M2 is how you avoid walking up it.
Zurich's Polybahn, Dolderbahn and Uetliberg line
All three are included, because the local network files them under transport rather than attractions. All three feel like excursions rather than commutes, and all three cost you nothing.
If you want the full picture of what else falls inside the pass, see what's included.
Do you still need a hotel guest card?
Lots of Swiss hotels hand you a guest card at check-in, the Lausanne Transport Card, the Montreux Riviera Card, Guest Card Chur, the Gstaad Card and plenty of others. For transport, these are mostly redundant when you've got a pass. But don't bin them, because several carry museum and attraction discounts the pass doesn't.
Short version: hold both. The pass does the moving, the guest card sometimes shaves money off the doing.
How to use your pass on city transport
- Have your pass ready, on your phone or printed, whichever you bought.
- Walk straight to the tram, bus or boat. Skip the ticket machine entirely.
- Show your pass if an inspector asks, along with the ID you registered it with.
- Ride to the end of the network if you like, there's no zone limit to worry about.