GVB gets concession to provide public transport in Amsterdam for coming decade
After nearly a year of uncertainty, Amsterdam’s public transit provider GVB will continue operating buses, trams, ferries, and metros in and around the city for the next eleven years, Het Parool reports. The Vervoerregio Amsterdam (Amsterdam Transport Region) formally awarded the concession on Tuesday, July 1, following months of tense negotiations and internal pressure from the company’s workforce and unions.
The new agreement extends GVB’s role until the end of 2036. A revised service schedule with expanded operations will take effect in late March.
The concession had long appeared settled. As early as 2017, authorities agreed GVB could retain the contract without a public tender, provided it continued performing at market standards. However, last year, the Vervoerregio assessed the company’s proposal as “insufficient,” which brought the arrangement into question.
In November, GVB was given another opportunity to submit a plan. Over the following months, Vervoerregio and GVB engaged in extensive talks amid unrest within the company and external pressure from the FNV labor union and GVB’s works council.
Wethouder Melanie van der Horst, chair of the Vervoerregio, said the renewed partnership was grounded in “mutual leadership.” “What I felt was lacking in the previous bid was courage,” she told Het Parool. “That’s in there now.” Van der Horst emphasized that services will become “more and better” and will reach neighborhoods more comprehensively.
GVB Director Claudia Zuiderwijk called the process “complex,” explaining, “It was complex: looking eleven years ahead in a city that is changing rapidly.”
A central part of the new contract is a 4 percent increase in transit services starting in March 2026. To make this possible, GVB and Vervoerregio agreed on an “ingrowth path,” which allows for temporarily lower frequencies on quieter lines and periods in the first years. This approach is intended to expand the network as a whole.
Zuiderwijk described the plan as “a puzzle between ambition and feasibility.” She noted the tight labor market and the urgent need to recruit hundreds of new staff each year. “According to McKinsey, more than 1.4 million vacancies are expected in 2030. Our sector is right in the middle of that,” she told Het Parool.
Over the coming years, GVB will need between 600 and 700 new employees annually. With limited resources, the company will prioritize assigning staff to high-frequency daytime routes. “We choose to deploy the people we can hire on lines with high frequency during the day,” Zuiderwijk said. As a result, the long-discussed night metro, favored by many Amsterdam residents, will not materialize in the near term.
It also remains unclear exactly how the 4 percent growth in service will be distributed. In the most recent plan presentation, residents expressed concern that access to the Noord district would actually decline. Van der Horst stated, “We are still in talks with GVB to do something extra for that area in the coming year.”
Beyond service expansions, GVB and Vervoerregio have broader ambitions. Heavily used routes, such as the Noord/Zuidlijn metro, tram 26 to IJburg, and major bus connections to new development areas like Haven-Stad and Amstel III, are expected to evolve into High-Quality Public Transport (HOV) corridors, offering faster, more frequent service with road priority and shorter wait times.
Plans also include significant investments in innovation and sustainability. Commitments have been made to reduce energy consumption, increase material reuse, and prepare infrastructure for extreme weather. By 2036, the Noord/Zuidlijn should be ready for fully autonomous metro operation without drivers.
Zuiderwijk called the contract award “the icing on the cake of our 125th anniversary.” Still, she cautioned about national budget cuts. “What we are building together here is at odds with national policy. It really must not happen that we have to scale back later due to cuts from The Hague.”
