Things still aren’t looking great for Dutch public transport services. Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS) is already running a reduced service as a result of a shortage of workers, and this week saw the rail company announce that even fewer trains would be running in the Netherlands from November 7.
Earlier this month, NS chief Bart Groenewegen warned that further cuts to rail services were on the cards as the company struggles to fill around 2.000 job vacancies. “If we continue like this, we may have to decide to scale down our timetable even further,” Groenewegen told NOS at the start of October.
Now, barely two weeks later, NS has confirmed that, before the new timetable comes into effect in December, passengers should prepare for further cuts - particularly during rush hour. “The last thing we want is to run fewer trains. Yet it is necessary: passengers are now too often faced with cancelled trains,” the company writes on its website. NS hopes that by bringing forward some of the changes initially planned for December 11, it can “ensure that trains are cancelled at the last minute less often, and our colleagues get more breathing room.”
NS has announced that the following changes to its timetable will come into effect on November 7:
In addition to these cuts, NS will run longer trains between Eindhoven and Amsterdam, and between Rotterdam, Schiphol Airport and Arnhem, in order to accommodate the larger crowds. Additional trains will also be running between Amersfoort and Zwolle. For more information about the new timetable, check the NS website.