Swiss here, it always depends. Some rides are cheaper by car but take less time by train and you have WiFi and fresh coffee in trains so it's only partially travel time partially leisure or work time.
Some routes are more expensive, but again way more comfortable than a car.
The there are dozens of hacks to save. Early booking, last minute bookings, half fair (which is only $200 or so a year and makes you pay half for everything including boats and some mountain trains), $50 24h all inclusive tickets, ...
IMO if you assume our median income to be 3 times that of Austria (or Germany, Italy for that matter). And our tickets on average cost only 1.5-2x as much while we actually have one of the best networks you can think of I would say it's not expensive at all.
My all in leasing car is $500 + petrol. For 2 people getting 2 all inklusive Tickets would still be cheaper.
Half fare card is CHF 185 for the first year or CHF 165 for every subsequent year (CHF 120 / CHF 100 if you're 16-26).
For anyone planning to spend any amount of time in Switzerland and using PT, it is well worth considering. It does exactly what it says, you only pay half.
So assuming you travel from Zurich to Bern (CHF 51 -> CHF 26, you safe CHF 25), it's worth it after only 8 trips.
Everyone seems to have a half price card except tourists. I think this is designed to get subsidize tourists less, because otherwise Swiss rail and metro prices appear twice as much as other European countries.
You need to do a lot of train travel to amortize those costs. If you just need to take the train from Geneva airport to Lausanne and then maybe the metro a couple of times, it won't be worth it.
Some routes are more expensive, but again way more comfortable than a car.
The there are dozens of hacks to save. Early booking, last minute bookings, half fair (which is only $200 or so a year and makes you pay half for everything including boats and some mountain trains), $50 24h all inclusive tickets, ...
IMO if you assume our median income to be 3 times that of Austria (or Germany, Italy for that matter). And our tickets on average cost only 1.5-2x as much while we actually have one of the best networks you can think of I would say it's not expensive at all.
My all in leasing car is $500 + petrol. For 2 people getting 2 all inklusive Tickets would still be cheaper.