Well, according to NS’ performance figures this year, it seems as though the Dutch railway service was on time more often than it was last year. Of course, there are still a few weeks of the year left to go. In 2017, the number of passengers reaching their destination within three minutes of the scheduled time was 91,6 percent and, so far, this year they have been on time in 92,6 percent of cases.
In 2018, the number of “good days”, defined by 90 percent of trains running on time, rose to 258. Last year, there were only 218 good days, and when compared to 2002, NS has improved in leaps and bounds, as back then, only 13 days were “good”.
NS’ good performance this year can be attributed to extra trains, around 130 extra train services ran every working day (50 Intercitys and 80 Sprinters), and a good timetable. Timely maintenance and the major efforts of train drivers and conductors to stay on schedule were also great contributors to this year’s performance results.
Chief Executive of NS, Roger van Boxtel, is happy that the efforts of NS employees is becoming more visible for passengers and asserts that the railway company “will do everything to maintain [on time figures] in 2019”.
Despite good performance figures, not all train journeys in 2018 were without delay. Around 2,4 percent of travellers experienced a delay of more than 15 minutes due to large disturbances. This is, however, lower than last year’s figure of 2,6 percent. And according to Van Boxtel, the number of “bad days”, with less than 75 percent of trains on time, has decreased.
At the start of the year, many delays were experienced by passengers, as NS and ProRail had to abandon train services due to a severe storm which damaged train tracks. Additionally, services were hindered in 2018 because of questionable situations, such as a suspicious package, 104 of these situations were reported.
One suspicious bag report at the end of March at Rotterdam Central station even led to immobilisation of a portion of railway traffic. This case affected more than 27.000 passengers. Luckily, all reports of suspicious packages turned out to be false alarms, however, they still hindered travellers. According to ProRail, in 2018, there were 540 incidents which greatly hampered train travel. This year, there were more than 200 suicides and 33 collisions with crossing point users.