There are a few different possible causes of this rise beyond just more people dodging fares more
1. Electronic ticketing has increasingly become the standard, with the vast majority of tickets now either e-tickets bought online, or mobile ticketing, unless they are a season ticket on a SwissPass smartcard. Therefore more people are leaving ticket purchase until the last minute. Sometimes that goes wrong, both from the passenger's side (started purchase too late, payment method didn't work), and from the railway's side (EasyRide did not activate properly. purchase made before train departure didn't go through until after departure). Onboard staff typically press a button on their mobile device to log a timestamp upon departure from each station. Any ticket subsequently scanned which originates from that station but was (logged to have been) purchased later than this timestamp is automatically displayed as invalid and can lead to fines/penalty fares, even if the ticket check does not take place until hours later.
3. EasyRide, while fantastic and extremely convenient, will naturally lead to more situations of mobile phones dying and people being unable to show their ticket. These usually result in a penalty.
4. At some point since 2019, there has been a noticable shift in the approach taken during ticket checks. Previously, onboard staff had a lot of leeway to manage ticket irregularities as they saw fit. Nowadays the policy seems to be to record details and let the back office sort it out later, often leading to significantly less leniency than previously, and more records in the fare-dodging register.
6. During the pandemic, there were almost no ticket checks onboard trains. That has since changed, but people's fare-dodging habits may not have caught up with that.
7. The Swiss fares system, while not the quagmire that is the British rail fares system, still has its complexities and quirks that can lead to people getting caught out. For example, first class upgrades (from a second class ticket) can be purchased on staffed trains without penalty just by sitting in first class and paying during the ticket check. Doing the same thing on trains without onboard staff can lead to a penalty fare if a random check occurs. Which trains are which is not always entirely obvious, especially if you are not interested in railways.
On staffing - typically IR, IC, EC, ICE and TGV services have onboard staff, S and RE services typically do not. Random checks can happen anywhere. The eye symbol, which is now present on almost all swiss trains, indicates that a ticket must be purchased before boarding and cannot be bought on board without penalty. This is separate from whether the train has onboard staff or not, most still do. On trains with onboard staff, tickets will be checked more often than not. On S and RE trains, ticket checks are much rarer, but usually targeted. You can go months without a single check, and then be randomly checked multiple times within a week. Checks are also more common on zonal boundaries. On the narrow-gauge networks, there is more variation, but the same general rules apply.
On split ticketing - while it is much less common and much less useful than the UK, it can sometimes still save money, particularly as mentioned above if it allows you to use zonal instead of distance-based tickets (or the opposite, if saver tickets are available and cheaper than the zonal fare). It can also be useful for international journeys e.g. when travelling between Zurich and Munich, splitting at one or more of the 3 border stations along the way (St. Margrethen, Lindau, Bregenz) and checking all 3 operators (SBB, ÖBB, DB) and the current EUR CHF exchange rate can often save some money.
Notably, unlike the UK, most of these split ticketing options have implications on their validity and passenger rights. Splitting international tickets means each component may be classed as a domestic journey leading to diffferent passenger rights applying in case of delay or cancellation. Zonal tickets have broader validity on any mode within the zones of validity, but are usually time-based, whereas direct (non-zonal) tickets are only valid on a direct route towards the destination, but without a time restriction on the day of validity (except itinerary-specific saver tickets). Non-saver direct tickets typically allow unlimited break of journey along the way during the day, whereas zonal tickets only allow this during their window of validity.
I would add that to me, the swiss system of managing fare evasion makes much more sense than the mess of penalty fares and prosecutions in the UK. If you are caught evading a fare, you will be charged a penalty fare and be put on a register of fare-dodgers, with the penalty increasing each time. If the penalty is not paid, it will be recovered through the debt recovery process like any other civil debt. Prosecution is reserved for fraud or repeated large-scale evasion and is done by cantonal prosecutors, not by the operators. There is no legalised blackmail with outrageous out-of-court settlement offers and threats of criminal prosecution as there is in the UK. Moreover, fares are set in such a way that fare evasion rarely pays off compared to just buying tickets or a monthly/annual season ticket in the long run. Those who try to evade fares are typically those with a higher risk appetite - i.e. younger men.
Ticket barriers are not really under discussion in Switzerland, because the open system relies on transfers during a journey (the so-called transport chain) being as smooth and convenient as possible, including from tram/bus to train. For example, Zurich HB has no less than 4 underground subways connecting all the platforms with each other and the adjacent tram stops, to ensure that transfers can be consistently, quickly, and reliably made between modes. Introducing ticket barriers would create congestion, lead to detours, and slow down passenger flow, causing delays during transfers of up to 5 minutes. Just those 5 minutes can then lead to arriving at the destination up to 30 or even 60 minutes later. The Swiss have spent millions on station upgrades in order to save billions on line upgrades. Introducing ticket barriers would compromise that. More recently, the role of these subways in reducing the social divide caused by the railway tracks and their potential as shopping destinations has also been recognised more - and putting them behind ticket barriers would destroy that.
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