Subway

Amsterdam's new Noord-Zuid subway line, which opened last year, will be extended to Schiphol and Hoofddorp, Schiphol CEO Dick Benschop announced at the airport's New Year's reception on Monday. The parties involved reached an agreement to do so at the end of last year. It is no longer a question of if, but when the subway line will be extended, Benschop said, NU.nl reports. 

The first official traveling day for Amsterdam's new Noord-Zuid subway line happened almost without a hitch on Sunday. By 5:45 p.m. only one train did not run according to schedule, a spokesperson for Amsterdam public transit company GVB said to Het Parool.

As a result, passengers had to wait 12 minutes for their train, instead of six minutes. "Within half an hour, the subway was back on schedule", the spokesperson said. The GVB deployed extra personnel to help guide travelers on the first day of running.

An increasing number of people who use public transit in the Netherlands are faced with violence like threats, assault, intimidation or robbery, according to a survey by CROW among 87 thousand public transit passengers, the Telegraaf reports.

In 2017 the number of such incidents on public transport increased slightly for the first time in five years. Last year 15.5 percent of passengers reported facing violence or aggression, compared to 13.5 percent in 2016. CROW could not give a definite explanation for the increase. 

Anti-terrorism unit DSI performed a major drill at Rotterdam subway station Blaak during the early hours of Thursday morning. They practiced a scenario involving a terrorist attack happening on King's Day, NOS reports.

Dozens of extras decked out in orange clothing took part in the drill, to make the exercise as realistic as possible. Multiple volunteers played injured people. During the exercise, members of the DSI had to disable the "terrorists" and evacuate the wounded, according to the broadcaster. Dozens of DSI members took part in the drill.

A man was hit on the head with a hammer after an argument in an Amsterdam subway on Sunday evening. The victim was taken to hospital. The police are looking for three men, Het Parool reports.

The incident happened around 7:40 p.m. on subway 54 towards Gein. The man and three others had an argument. Between the stops at Amstelstation and Van der Madeweg, one of the three men attacked him with a hammer, a police spokesperson said to the newspaper.

On December 29th, an experiment will start with running night subways in Rotterdam and its surrounding areas. For one year, transit company RET will run subways on all lines for an hour longer on Fridays and Saturdays. This means that the last subway will leave Rotterdam at 1:30 a.m., AD reports.

A 38-year-old man was stabbed to death on an Amsterdam subway during rush hour on Tuesday evening. Bystanders and emergency services tried to resuscitate the Amsterdam man, and he was rushed to hospital, but he died of his injuries, Het Parool reports.

The stabbing happened on subway 53, near the Venserpolder stop at Dalsteindreef in Zuidoost around 6:00 p.m. A 27-year-old man from Amsterdam was arrested almost immediately after the stabbing. He initially fled the scene, but the police quickly tracked him down. The circumstances surrounding the stabbing are being investigated.

A fault that brought subway traffic in Amsterdam to a standstill on Wednesday morning, is now mostly resolved. No movement was possible on subway lines 50, 51, 53 and 54 since around 8:45 a.m. Around 10:30 a.m. the subways started moving again, ANP reports.

Subway line 50, 53 and 54 are traveling according to schedule, according to municipal transport company GVB. Line 51 is traveling, but only to Spaklerweg for the time being.

Traffic on Amsterdam's subway lines are back on schedule after a fault in the traffic control system brought it to a standstill on Monday afternoon. The problems started around 2:00 p.m. and affected all lines. Subway traffic gruadually restarted around 6:30 p.m., according to municipal transport company GVB, NU.nl reports.

Subway line 51 fell out again on Monday night due to another fault on the traffic control system, but that fault has also beenf fixed. GVB reports no problems on the subway lines at present.

The Noord/Zuid subway line in Amsterdam will only be put into operation on 22 July 2018, instead of previously announced October 2017, due to new setbacks, traffic alderman Pieter Litjens announced at a press conference on Friday, Het Parool reports. There will be no extra costs.

Turkish authorities caught a man suspected of carrying out the Brussels attacks last June, and expelled him from the country, President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday. The alleged attacker, Ibrahim el-Bakraoui, was caught in Gaziantep at the Syrian border and then sent to the Netherlands, an Erdogan representative later told media outlets.