A day of commuting
Sources & method ↓Commuting in
Journeys to work and back around Zürich.
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Zürich population vs daily average · All transport
−12’761Commuter data · 2020–2025
About the data
The counts come from published commuting statistics. Routes and travel times are estimates for an illustrative working day. The map doesn’t show live traffic.
Domestic commuter shares for six cities, pooled 2019–2021. Workplace inbound shares take precedence over home-city outbound shares.
02 · Cross-border workersFSO, Q4 2025Counts of cross-border workers by Swiss workplace commune.
03 · Swiss flowsFSO commune matrixCommuter counts between Swiss communes, from 2020.
04 · Transport splitSwiss Cities 20262023 resident commuter shares used to estimate modes by home commune. These are not measured modes for individual journeys.
05 · Foreign communesOpenStreetMapNames and centre points for communes outside Switzerland.
06 · BasemapStadia Alidade SmoothThe map behind the commuter dots.
07 · Swiss locationsswissBOUNDARIES3DCommune boundaries and centre points for the Swiss side of the map.
08 · RoutesValhalla / OpenStreetMapCar, cycling and walking routes, with journey times for car trips.
09 · Swiss towns and villagesswisstopo place namesTown and village centres used as endpoints for car journeys.
10 · Swiss rail networkARE · NPVM 2023Rail geometry from the federal transport model. Its passenger totals are not used here.
11 · Rail stationsDiDok · SBB / SKIOfficial station locations used to connect Swiss commuter communes to the rail network.
12 · Public transportTransitousA small set of additional public-transport routes based on operator timetables.
13 · City listFSO City Statistics 2026Population figures for the ten largest cities. Additional cities were chosen for their commuter flows.
Swiss commune pairs come from the 2020 matrix. Mode estimates use domestic inbound shares for six cities (2019–2021), then home-city outbound shares where available. Vaud–Geneva pairs use the 2020 inter-cantonal commuter survey, with other modes left unclassified. Other pairs use the home commune’s 2023 resident mix, or a small-city proxy. Foreign origins in Germany are allocated from the Q4 2025 workplace total; their transport mix uses Zürich’s resident shares as a proxy. None of these splits measures the mode of a particular commune pair. Each moving dot represents a group of commuters. Larger circles mean more commuters.
The buttons filter the map, chart and city circle together. The chart counts arrivals at workplace endpoints and departures from home endpoints; it does not measure crossings of city boundaries. It includes routed journeys only. This is an illustrative working day without attendance, weekend or holiday adjustments.
Where no timetable journey is available, Swiss rail paths follow the federal transport model’s 2023 network between selected stations. These paths use estimated travel times and do not establish a valid service or passenger count. Bus connections, transfers and routes abroad may still be missing. Other public transport shows a small sample.
Where only resident shares are available, walk/bike is the residual after motorised and public transport and may include other modes. The six-city study explicitly identifies walking/cycling. Only local routes up to 25 km between endpoints are considered. Valhalla uses walking within 3 km and cycling beyond that. Routes over 35 km or three hours are excluded from both map and chart. French records explicitly distinguish walking and cycling; no-journey records are excluded.
Routes cover at least 95% of mapped car / motorcycle estimates in each direction, with separate journeys to work and home. Moving dots follow these routes over the basemap. Departure times are estimated; journey times come from Valhalla. The counts include people travelling by car or motorcycle, not vehicles, and don’t account for traffic jams.
Routes start and end near town and village centres or French town halls, with commune centres where needed.