Dutch train fares could rise by over 10% next year as NS posts €191 million loss

Train tickets on most routes in the Netherlands could rise by more than 10 percent in 2025, the Dutch national railway NS said on Tuesday. The company made this statement in its annual report, which showed a substantial loss of 191 million euros last year, its best yearly result since before the coronavirus pandemic.

The NS already wanted to raise fares by 8.67 percent in 2024, but that was prevented when the Cabinet provided the railway with one-time additional funding of 120 million euros. That payment was made based on demands from parliamentarians.

The NS warned this was not a structural solution, and the price of tickets and subscriptions would have to be increased. “NS will, therefore, be forced to implement the deferred fare increase in 2025 due to rising costs and the ‘indexation gap’ that has already occurred in recent years, on top of regular inflation,” the railway warned.

“That could mean an increase of more than 10 percent by 2025.” The company said that it was now carrying 1.1 billion euros in debt due to losses during the coronavirus pandemic. Passenger figures have yet to return to pre-pandemic levels.

Even though revenue last year was 22 percent higher than in 2022, passengers still traveled 11 percent fewer kilometers on the rail network compared to 2019. That was improved from 2022, when kilometers traveled remained 24 percent lower than pre-pandemic figures.

The company noted that the price of tickets and subscriptions did increase since 2020, but not in line with inflation and increasing operating costs. The NS said that the fees it charges passengers should be about 9 percent higher to make up for the gap.

The NS managed to post a 275 million euro profit in 2019, but it then suffered a loss of 890 million euros when the pandemic struck in 2020. That was eclipsed by a 952 million euro loss in 2021. The figures have started to show signs of improvement, with a 421 million euro loss in 2022, followed by a 191 million euro loss last year.

Revenues rose by nearly 14.5 percent, from 3.341 billion euros in 2022 to 3.823 billion euros in 2023. The revenue was generated mainly from operating trains in the Netherlands and Germany, and running the Dutch train stations.

Within the Netherlands, revenue rose by 22 percent to 2.887 billion euros as passengers used the trains more often than during the last year, affected by Covid restrictions and a hesitation to travel and commute.

The company’s international arm also saw a 15 percent boost in train tickets sold compared to 2022. NS International said this was due to more demand for sustainable travel. “Since December, the travel time of the IC Berlin between Amsterdam Centraal Station and Berlin has been accelerated by 30 minutes,” the NS said. This is because the locomotive no longer needs to be changed in Bad Bentheim at the German border.

NS suffered many train delays last year due to track work, disruptions, and backlogs. The rail company granted 288,345 compensation claims for delays last year, over 100,000 more than the year before. The compensation amount increased from 2.2 million to 3.1 million euros. NS spent an additional 3.6 million euros on 142,175 compensation claims for alternative transport, taxis, and hotel stays for affected travelers, compared to 3.2 million euros for 32,293 claims in 2022.

Last year, 89.7 percent of travelers arrived on time - within 5 minutes of the scheduled arrival time. That performance is significantly below NS’s own target of 91.5 percent and also worse than 2022’s score of 91.6 percent.

“2023 had two faces for NS. We got off to an energetic start in the first half of the year. While in 2022, dozens of trains per day were canceled due to staff shortages, the consequences for our travelers were much less noticeable last spring thanks to all our efforts,” said NS CEO Wouter Koolmees. “How different the autumn was, when travelers suffered a lot from delays, disruptions, and overly busy trains. That must be better for travelers.”