Damaged overhead lines between Hoofddorp and Leiden left three trains stranded on Thursday, ProRail reported. Around 1,400 passengers were evacuated. The stranded trains are currently being towed away.
"The contractor is currently inspecting the damage", ProRail said. "How long the repairs will take is not yet known." No trains are currently running between Hoofddorp and Leiden. "ProRail regrets the inconvenience for all travelers on this route."
There are far too few spaces for bicycles on the train to keep up with the growing number of public transit users that travel with their bikes, according to cyclists' union Fietsersbond and travelers' association Rover. They call on NS to take measures, especially now that cycling is increasingly being encouraged, the Telegraaf reports.
Amsterdam plans to restrict cars in the city even more in order to keep the city accessible and reduce emissions. The Amsterdam office of mayor and aldermen presented a 'Car-less Agenda' with 27 measures to reduce car traffic in the city. The package of measures is mainly focused on investing in public transit and improving bicycle and pedestrian connections, NOS reports.
From next year the Eurostar train will run directly between London and Amsterdam and Rotterdam, instead of the current arrangement in which travelers leaving the Netherlands have to change trains and go through passport checks in Brussels.
The public transit sector, cities and transport regions drew up long-term plans to make sure train transport can cope with the strong growth in passengers in the future. At least 20 billion euros will be needed for their plans, which span from 2020 towards 2040, the Telegraaf reports based on wish lists from the sector.
A train was stopped at Rotterdam Central Station on Monday because of a woman wearing a niqab. According to the police, NS inspectors asked for police aid because the woman refused to show her face to the inspectors so that they could check whether she had a valid ticket. The woman was not fined, NOS reports.
Many train stations in the Netherlands are not built to handle the expected growth in traveler numbers in the coming years. In order to prevent unclear and even dangerous situations on overcrowded platforms, rail manager ProRail is drawing up an emergency plan to keep the crowds under control, NU.nl reports.
Passenger and freight transport on the Dutch rails is expected to increase by 40 percent by 2040. This means that more trains will have to run, and more tracks will have to be built in the coming years to cope with this growth.
A person was stabbed to death at the Capelsebrug subway station in Rotterdam on Monday morning following what witnesses described as a scuffle. The perpetrator is still at large, the Rotterdam police said on Twitter.
Emergency services, including a trauma team by helicopter, responded to the subway station on Abraham van Rijckevorseplein just before 10:00 a.m. First responders tried to resuscitate the victim, but it was to no avail. They died at the scene. So far the police released no information regarding the victim's identity.
Public transport prices in the Netherlands increased more over the past decade that the costs involved in driving your own car, Statistics Netherlands reported on Monday. In July of this year, public transit prices were 30 percent higher than in 2009. Personal car costs increased by 25 percent in this same period. For comparison, consumer products and -services prices increased by 18 percent in this period.
In the Netherlands, the amount of money spent on car costs is 10 times higher than that spent on public transit.
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 most overcrowded train in the country runs between Oss and 's-Hertogenbosch Oost, according to NS. This sprinter that departs at 7:43 a.m. is around 40 percent more crowded than the maximum capacity of the train every day, with the exception of the weekend. The train that runs on this rout at 8:31 a.m. is also very popular, running at 28 percent over capacity every day, NOS reports.
NS expects a record number of 36.7 million passengers in September, 1.7 million more than the same month last year. The rail company is taking various measures to cope with the increasing crowds.
Angela Kempeners, a 36-year-old Limburg woman who was removed from an Arriva bus in Stein on Monday because she was wearing a niqab, is shaken by the event, but will continue to take the bus to work. "I felt just like a black person in the United States. This really hit me", she said to newspaper Trouw.
A niqab-wearing woman was forced to leave a public bus operated by Arriva in Stein, Limburg on Monday. The bus driver in question called the police when the woman refused to leave the bus, the public transit firm confirmed to NU.nl and the Telegraaf.
The bus driver asked the woman to get off the bus and stopped the vehicle when she refused to do so, according to NU.nl. The police were called in and responding officers then escorted the woman off the bus. This was "not in accordance with the guidelines", an Arriva spokesperson said.
NS will soon start selling train tickets through companies like car-rentals, tour operators and hotels. According to the Dutch railway company, it is the first transporter in Europe to fully outsource part of its ticket sales to third parties, Financieele Dagblad reports.
The new NS partners will purchase train kilometers from the rail company and then re-sell them to their customers at their own discretion and price. The customer can then use the train through an app or fuel card, for example. In this way NS hopes to lure car users to the train.
By 2021, the Dutch government wants to begin phasing out the OV Chipkaart payment method used by public transportation operators for nearly a decade, the top deputy at the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management wrote in a letter to parliament. New payment options will be meant to bring the options for local commuters inline with existing and future technologies commonly available to public transit users globally, Secretary Stientje van Veldhoven-van der Meer said.
No buses or trams are running in The Hague between 6:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday morning. Employees of city transport company HTM are striking for better working conditions. They want a wage increase and a lower workload, among other things, NOS reports.
HTM said it tried to keep the buses and trams running as much as possible, but that turned out not to be an option. "It is very annoying that our travelers are once again the victim, but we simply do not find it responsible", the HTM management said.
The Dutch government is considering introducing levies so that those who benefit from public transport also help pay for its improvements, Financieele Dagblad reports based on documents the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management sent to parliament over the past six months.
After a nationwide 24-hour long strike on Tuesday, public transit employees are back at work. The transit companies managed to restart their services without major issues.
NS reports no strike-related faults or delays on its website. The only delays reported have to do with planned track maintenance on the Leeuwarden-Meppel route, which will last until Sunday.
As a national one-day public transit strike was almost halfway finished in the Netherlands, traffic was already beginning to pile up on highways in the Netherlands from 3 p.m. on Tuesday. Drivers jammed up nearly 450 kilometers of highways by 4:45 p.m., up from roughly 300 kilometers of traffic jams 40 minutes earlier, according to travelers' association ANWB.
The public transit strike left train stations throughout the Netherlands largely deserted on Tuesday morning. People gathered in the stations were largely tourists who did not know about the strike.
Tourists Rachel, Angie, and Acqua were caught by surprise when they arrived at Amsterdam Central Station. They have a hotel booked in Rotterdam. A volunteer from Red Cross explained the strike to them.
A total of 82 flights at Schiphol airport were canceled on Tuesday due to a nationwide public transit strike. "Travelers have to check with their airline if their flight is affected", a spokesperson for the airport said to NH Nieuws.
Due to a nationwide public transit strike in the Netherlands on Tuesday, Dutch had to make alternative arrangements to get to work, school or university. Schiphol CEO Dick Benschop decided to spend the night at the airport, instead of risking not being able to reach it on Tuesday.
While the nationwide public transit strike is annoying to most people, taxi drivers are smiling all the way. "Such a public transit strike can happen more often, according to us", a taxi driver at Amsterdam Central Station said to NOS. He expects a busy day. "We will see how many people we can help today."
