S-Bahn

The S-Bahn or Schnellbahn is the name of a rail network of the type Réseau regional express in Germany, Austria or Switzerland, i.e. a Public transport serving a strongly urbanized area. S-Bahn is the abbreviation of Stadtschnellbahn or Schnellbahn (in German, respectively urban express train and express train ). In Austria, the complete name Schnellbahn is generally used.

It is close to a traditional regional train but it is characterized in more by:

of the given rhythm and dense schedules,
of the brought closer stations,
a tariffing particular (and unified with the other means of transport),
a good interconnection with the other means of transport (drunk, Tram…),
a rail network which is clean for him (in major part),
the crossing of the downtown area in tunnel (in much of networks).

By extension, the term S-Bahn indicates also all the existing types of Réseau regional express in the world.

Origin

The term S-Bahn was used for the first time in December 1930 with Berlin, after the electrification of the network of suburban train of the city, since 1924. Hamburg took again the term for its own electric railway urban network. Other lines of suburban trains were integrated into the network and unified tariffing.

Since the the Sixties, many cities in Germany developed such networks, with always for objectives a good integration with transport in commum already existing and a single tariffing ( Verbundstarif ).

Networks in Germany

The majority of the great agglomerations of Germany have their S-Bahn. All are symbolized by a “S” white on green bottom

There are currently the following networks:

S-Bahn Berlin
S-Bahn Dresden
S-Bahn Hamburg
S-Bahn Hanover
S-Bahn Leipzig - Market
S-Bahn Magdeburg
S-Bahn Munich
S-Bahn Nürnberg
S-Bahn Rhine-Hand, (area of Francfort-sur-le-Main)
S-Bahn the Rhine-Neckar, (area of Ludwigshafen/Mannheim/Heidelberg/Karlsruhe)
S-Bahn the Rhine-Ruhr/the Rhine-Sieg (area of the the Ruhr/Cologne)
S-Bahn Rostock
S-Bahn Stuttgart

Networks in Austria

One finds a network of S-Bahn with:

Vienna, since the years 1960
Salzburg, since 2004. It with the characteristic to also serve the close German area.

Networks in Switzerland

In the German-speaking zones of Switzerland, such a network is called S-Bahn. In the French-speaking or bilingual zones French-speaking person-German-speaking, the " term; the RER " is sometimes used in French. To note that even in the French-speaking areas the line of the RER is called S# , # being the number of the line. (One will thus say Voie 2, arrived in station of the S3 bound for… and not Way 2, arrived in station of the RER line 3 bound for… )

One finds a network of S-Bahn with:

Basle and all the transborder zone
Bern
Lucerne and surroundings
Saint-Gall
the canton of Tessin, around Bellinzone and Lugano
Zurich (most important of Switzerland.)
Lausanne (Expension of the network towards Geneva for the creation of the RER Lémanique in project.)

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