NS continues to book losses as traveler numbers fail to recover

The Dutch rail company NS again booked a loss in the first half of this year, primarily due to disappointing traveler numbers. According to CEO Wouter Koolmees, the rail sector is struggling to cope with changing travel behavior.

In the first six months of 2023, NS suffered an operating loss of 26 million euros. That is significantly less than the 225 million euros loss in the first half of last year, but not enough of an improvement for a “financially healthy NS.”

Traveler numbers have picked up in the past six months, with the number of passenger kilometers traveled with an NS train increasing 6 percent in June compared to a year earlier. But passenger numbers are still considerably lower than before the coronavirus pandemic. On an average working day, 1.1 million people currently take the train, compared to 1.3 million before the pandemic.

“The rail sector is operating in a difficult period with changing travel behavior,” Koolmees said. “The Netherlands travels by train more often again, but we still have considerably fewer travelers than before corona. That is also reflected in our financial performance. Our social task remains essential but is financially loss-making.”

The rail company’s punctuality deteriorated in the past months. In the first half of this year, 91.5 percent of travelers reached their destination on time, compared to 93.3 percent a year earlier. NS blames the decrease on “several impactful incidents” in the first half of 2023, including a train crash and derailment in Voorschoten, badger nests found under the tracks in several places, and an outage at a ProRail rail traffic control post last month that disrupted train traffic in Amsterdam and Utrecht.