From Monday, September 28, budget rail operator GoVolta is extending its coverage within the Netherlands, with each domestic ticket costing a flat €10.
Sick of the NS’ exorbitant ticket prices? Well, there’s competition chugging down the tracks, with GoVolta soon extending their coverage to various stops within the Netherlands.
Domestic stops are coming
When the company first registered its routes with the ACM (the Dutch Authority for Consumers and Markets) in 2023, they initially ruled out selling domestic tickets.
However, on July 28 of this year, the rail operator filed an update with the ACM to scrap that restriction, announcing “plans to offer domestic passenger rail transport on the Dutch part of its connections”.
In other words, commuters within the Netherlands will soon be able to use GoVolta “for domestic routes between the Dutch stops”. These include stops at:
- Amsterdam Centraal,
- Hilversum,
- Amersfoort,
- Apeldoorn,
- Deventer,
- and Hengelo.
Oké, but why the change? Well, the company’s early experience with the Berlin route indicated that there were plenty of empty seats between Dutch stations, reports Treinreiziger.
This latest update is a bid to fill those seats. (And, if rush hour commutes have anything to say about it, that won’t be much of a challenge!)
More GoVolta routes get the green light
In a similar ACM update, “access to the railway infrastructure” may be granted for GoVolta to run even more routes. These include train services along the following:
- The Hague Central to Luxembourg (and Strasbourg),
- The Hague Central to Cologne,
- and Amsterdam Central to Paris via the high-speed line.
Should everything run full steam ahead, we could expect a launch date of December 12, 2027 for the Hague-Luxembourg-Strasbourg and Hague-Cologne routes.
However, before you rush to book seats, approval isn’t a guarantee. GoVolta still has to request track capacity from ProRail, which manages the Dutch rail network, and local trains will still get priority if track space is limited.
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NS is wat too expensive