The Swiss capacity allocation body TVS is a federal not-for-profit entity under public law with a sepa-rate legal personality.
We are independent and customer-driven. Our guiding principles are neutrality, quality and efficiency.
Here you'll find details of our Board of Directors and Executive Board and an organisation chart of the TVS.
The Board of Directors sets the strategic goals of the TVS every four years.
Here you can find out more about the work the TVS undertakes for the various parts of the rail network.
In addition to other tasks delegated to us, the TVS carries out the infrastructure management work needed to ensure that trains can access the rail network. This is explained in more detail here.
The timetable is generated by the train path design. The TVS is responsible for timetabling and participates in every phase of the timetabling process.
Use of the track network is based on a request or an order and the allocation of rights of use. The TVS accepts orders and allocates train paths and ancillary services.
Rail freight corridors are an important part of Switzerland’s policy of transferring freight from road to rail. The main role of the TVS here is in helping to coordinate available capacity and providing the framework conditions.
In accordance with Article 15f of the Railways Ordinance (EBV), the TVS keeps a register of the information required to operate on the rail infrastructure.
A charge is levied for use of the railway infrastructure. The TVS is responsible for ensuring that the services consumed by train path users are recorded and invoiced in a non-discriminatory manner.
The investment plans of the infrastructure managers state how they intend to undertake and fund the maintenance and expansion of their infrastructure in the future.
TVS collaborates with various European infrastructure-manager institutions and bodies to the extent that this is of benefit to the various duties it carries out and services it provides.
As a company in the rail infrastructure sector, the TVS plays an active role in Swiss rail industry bodies.
The glossary explains some of the specialist terminology the TVS uses in its work.
Here you'll find general information about the TVS as well as an introduction to the topic of railway network access.
When a path conflict occurs and mediation is unsuccessful, the TVS decides which application to accept and which one to reject. It does this based on the applicable priority rules laid down in the Railways Act (EBG), Rail Network Access Ordinance (RailNAO) and FOT Ordinance to the Rail Network Access Ordi-nance (RNAO-FOT).
A train path (comparable to an aircraft slot in the airline industry) is the entitlement to run a specific train defined in terms of its length, weight, loading gauge and speed on a particular section of the rail network at a given time.
The inventory of pre-configured train paths for freight traffic on the North-South corridors Gotthard and Lötschberg-Simplon published on the second Monday in January as a catalogue for the following timetable year. Simultaneously, under EU Regulation No 913/2010, another catalogue of special train paths is published by the rail freight corridors on behalf of the concerned IMs; these train paths have been harmonised inter-nationally and are protected from being used for other purposes.
Train path requests are applications for train paths submitted by railway undertakings or third parties entitled to order on the 2nd Monday in April for the annual timetable and applications for train paths in the current timetable.
