Electronic-lock glitch triggers thousands of wrongful €350 OV-bike fines
Dutch Railways (NS) has wrongfully fined more than 4,300 public-bike users 350 euros each over the past six months for failing to return an OV-fiets, even though more than half of those bikes were dutifully checked in, NS and user advocates say.
Since NS introduced new electronic locks in 2021, users check out bikes by tapping their OV-chip card but must still lock them manually without tapping on return. If they tap again, the system records the bike as still on loan. After one week, NS marks the bike as missing and issues the 350 euros fee. “I did everything right,” Nadine, who parked her bike at Amsterdam Centraal and confirmed with an NS employee it was properly stowed, told RTL. “Yet two weeks later I saw 380 euros debited from my account.”
NS data show that in 2023, 3,810 fines were issued for so-called unreturned bikes; in 2024, that jumped to 5,291, despite ride numbers remaining flat. Between January and June of this year, 4,304 fines went out—and 56 percent were later canceled, NS confirms. “It’s as if you’re treated like a criminal,” Sharon Heekelaar, who in 2023 had to borrow from her parents after a wrongful fine while on disability leave, told RTL.
Under NS policy, users must report a bike stolen to have their fine withdrawn, a requirement both consumer advocates and police call unreasonable. “There is no theft here,” contract-law expert Martien Schaub at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam told RTL. “NS should fix its system, not force customers to file police reports.”
NS says it cannot track bikes by GPS or use station cameras for returns because of privacy and safety rules. But travelers’ group Rover urges a simple solution: “Each bike’s serial number is linked to the card used to open it,” Rover spokesman Freek Bos told RTL. “NS could easily check if that bike serial is back in any of its stations before sending a fine.”
NS plans to continue rolling out electronic locks across its 16,000-bike fleet, hoping the new system will stabilize as users adapt. “We are improving our processes and system checks,” an NS spokesperson said. “Our goal remains to provide a reliable, convenient service without penalizing our customers.”
