Clock-face scheduling

Clock-face schedules are easy for passengers to memorise because departure and arrival times occur at consistent intervals, repeating during the day.

Clock-face timetables can be attractive for transport operators because the repeating pattern can allow the more efficient use of personnel, infrastructure and vehicles, and also make resource-planning easier.

Nevertheless, it could be necessary to co-ordinate the schedules of different modes of transport if links are made between them, such as at the terminal stop of a tram network if a journey can be continued by bus, so that passengers do not have to wait long at transfer point until the next service arrives.

Clock-face timetables can be attractive even if services provide no connections to other public transport because they allow a continuous use of vehicles and personnel.

Having several services meet at hubs where all of them arrive and leave at the same time is the most effective way of connecting multiple routes and modes.

Therefore, when an integrated timetable is introduced running times might be cut or extended to meet the ideal duration.

After the successful introduction of a line-bound regular timetable on one line in Switzerland in 1968,[1] the development continued in the Netherlands.

In Germany, the first large-scale use of regular timetables was the InterCity network of 1979, which provided hourly long-distance services between cities.

In 1982, a nationwide integrated regular timetable was introduced in Switzerland, which covered all but a few railway and bus lines.

[8] In 2015, the Federal Ministry of Transport had a feasibility study conducted for a Germany-wide integrated timetable ("Deutschlandtakt")[9][10] Similar to the Swiss example, where infrastructure demands are derived from the desired timetable and not vice versa, the Deutschlandtakt calls for several new and upgraded lines.

Introduction of the Deutschlandtakt has become a declared political goal of successive governments on the federal Level around 2020, and detailed desired timetables have been drafted.