If you’re someone who loves to complain about how tardy the Dutch railways are, then you may not be right on this one. According to new figures reported by RTL Nieuws, 92.6% of all trains have a maximum delay of five minutes. That’s not so bad, is it?
With a 14% increase in the number of travellers in the last five years, the NS must be doing something right. These new figures show us that they have been performing consistently high since last year in 2018. Public transport in the Netherlands is not that bad!
More people, more problems?
You would think that if a business gets more customers, it would be a good thing for them. But with NS, they might have reached their ceiling. The chance of getting a seat fell from 95.1% to 94.8% and they cannot add more or longer trains on a lot of the busy routes.
Travelers’ associations believe that the government should be investing more in the railways if they truly want more people to stop using their cars for daily commutes. However, NS CEO Roger van Boxtel is happy and said, “NS has improved performance considerably in recent years. That is first and foremost good news for our travelers, but also worth a compliment to everyone at NS.”
More high-speed trains?
Only 83.4% of high-speed trains arrive on time. But NS has big plans to increase this number. New trains will be entering the tracks in 2021. These trains are specialized to run on the tracks and take in the high overhead voltage on the high-speed tracks. So perhaps this would even out the travellers on some of the routes.
Do you travel by train every day? Do you believe these numbers? Let us know in the comments below!
Feature Image: Pixabay/ Skitterphoto
