NS international trains transported 917,000 passengers this summer

In the summer months of June, July and August almost 917 thousand people took a train from the Netherlands to a foreign country, NS International announced on Thursday. That is a 13 percent growth in passenger numbers compared to the summer of last year, NU.nl reports.

The intercity to Berlin saw the biggest increase in the number of passengers with 19 percent. The number of passengers taking the train to Brussels increased by 11 percent. The train to London was the only route to see a decrease in passengers, minus 1 percent. NS thinks this has to do with the fact that travelers still have to interrupt their journey to London in Brussels for passport and baggage checks.

NS International attributes the increase in summer passengers to the fact that international routes have been expanded and travel times have become shorter. For example, you can now travel to Disneyland Paris by train. And the Thalys train to Brussels now takes more passengers and less time.

Another factor is that there is now more attention on train traffic. "People are becoming increasingly aware of the impact of travel on he climate and the environment. The train is more often considered as a sustainable alternative to planes", NS International director Heike Luiten said to the newspaper.