Basler Verkehrs-Betriebe


Basler Verkehrs-Betriebe is a public transport operator in the Swiss city of Basel, and is wholly owned by canton of Basel-Stadt, which consists of city of Basel and the municipalities of Bettingen and Riehen. The BVB was founded in 1895, and became a self-governing public corporation on 1 January 2006. It transports 132 million passengers per year, an average of roughly 360,000 a day. It operates 128 motor trams and 74 trailers on 9 tram routes, as well as 99 buses on a total of 13 bus routes. These are kept operating by 1200 employees.
BVB jointly operates the Basel tram network with Baselland Transport AG, owned by the adjoining canton of Basel-Land. Whilst the green colored BVB tends to operate the shorter urban services, its tram routes do extend beyond the inner city into Basel-Land and parts of the German city of Weil am Rhein. Likewise the yellow BLT trams operate into the city centre. Both are part of the integrated fare network Tarifverbund Nordwestschweiz, which in itself is part of the three countries-integrated fare network triregio.
The Basel trolleybus system, which has been replaced by gas-driven buses in 2008, was also operated by BVB.