Reinventing the railroad
Pressure on the Dutch railroads? Nonsense, finds Merien ten Houten. "The Netherlands can significantly improve its rail performance with a targeted approach and infrastructure adjustments."
Published on November 23, 2024
Merien founded E52 with Bart in 2015. He thought journalism should capitalize on AI, and our AI tool, Laio, was his idea. He likes to get angry about hydrogen and mobility and writes columns about it.
The NS likes to shout that we have the busiest railroad in the EU as an argument for delays or why there is no room for competition. But so many people in the Netherlands do not travel by rail. A very different picture emerges if you compare the Netherlands not with other, much larger countries but with urban regions. We don't have a separate passenger rail network in the Netherlands. Everything is mixed up here—Brabant experiences the most delays caused by this mix of passenger and freight traffic. Unbundling is the key, separating intercity and local trains and shifting freight traffic to its tracks. This is how we transform the Dutch rail system into a metropolitan transportation system similar to the major European cities. The Netherlands can significantly improve its rail performance with a targeted approach and infrastructure adjustments.
Pressure?
Dutch Railways (NS) regularly argues that the Netherlands has the busiest rail network in the European Union. This is often used to explain the frequent delays and the lack of room for railroad competition. But the reality is that in the Netherlands, not so many people travel by rail at all. This becomes clear when we do not compare the Netherlands with other urbane regions or large countries. After all, our country is different from France and Germany too.
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When we look at transport performance, we see that the Dutch rail network is relatively quiet compared to systems such as the RER in the Paris region. The RER, with a network of only 600 kilometers, achieves more than 31 million train kilometers per kilometer of track. That is more than 1,000 times more than the Dutch network, a difference in order of magnitude we can't ignore. This difference is the result of the need for more choices. The train passenger notices this when the train waits for an intercity to pass or is stuck behind a freight train.
The challenges in Brabant
The situation in Brabant illustrates the problems facing the Dutch railroads. Delays there are significant and are caused by the mix of passenger and freight traffic. This contrasts sharply with the situation in the country's north, where trains often run on time. The track is quieter there, and Groningen, Friesland, and Drenthe have small flows of freight traveling by rail. The complexity and cohesion of different traffic flows negatively affect punctuality. NS spokespeople and experts such as Freek Bos, director of Rover, acknowledge that rail expansion is necessary to allow more trains to run on time.
Just expanding is not enough. The solution lies in unbundling the track. This means intercity, local, and freight run on their infrastructure. This follows the example of specific networks such as the RER and subways in large cities, where one type of train allows many trains to run quickly. The current situation, where freight trains run right through cities where they don't need to be, directly results from the lack of hard choices in policy.
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Making choices for capacity and reliability
It's time we started making hard choices in the Netherlands. We will gain capacity and reliability by making specific choices and sacrificing flexibility. The key to success lies in unbundling the railroads. Accept that certain flexibility will be lost, but the benefits are apparent.
Intercity and local trains would no longer have to share the same tracks. Moreover, except for routes in the periphery with space on the tracks, freight should not be transported on passenger lines. This requires investment in infrastructure and a rethinking of policy, but it is necessary to transform the Dutch rail system into one that fits the country's size. It's not a matter of being able to but of wanting to.
The metropolitan model
The Netherlands should look more into urban transport systems like those in Paris, London, and Berlin. These cities have proven that a metropolitan transport system with separate infrastructure for different types of traffic leads to higher capacity and reliability. The current situation, where old trains run on the HSL network, hindering fast Eurostar trains, is an example of how not to do it. Unbundling rail means that we in the Netherlands can look beyond traditional borders and comparisons with other countries. It is about creating a system that fits the size and dynamics of our country. We have to realize that the Netherlands is small, and thus, the Netherlands is more like Paris, London, or Berlin than France, the UK, or Germany. So we should also look for our inspiration not in the TGV across France but in the RER that brings millions of people to work every day.