Eight destinations at a distance of 800 to 1200 kilometers from the Netherlands have potential for operating night trains. In the longer term, these eight connections could be made in the order of 0,7 to 1,0 million trips per year. This is the conclusion of the Knowledge Institute for Mobility Policy (KiM) in the study 'Sleeping en route: the potential of the international night train to and from the Netherlands'.
These are the following eight destinations: Copenhagen, Warsaw, Prague, Munich, Vienna, Zurich, Milan and Turin. At current speeds, the night train is particularly interesting for travel over such distances, as much of the travel time can be spent sleeping and, as it were, 'time wasted' when weighing the traveler. In addition, the higher price of a sleeping accommodation on the night train often outweighs the savings of a hotel stay.
The night train is an expensive operating product and this has various causes. The specific equipment is expensive, the personnel costs are high because more personnel is required, who also mainly work at night and relatively few places by train.
Rail operators point to the uneven playing field compared to aviation, which after all has no VAT on tickets or excise duties on fuel. Moreover, they experience the levies on the use of the railway infrastructure as high. In contrast to aviation, these charges only cover a limited part of the costs of infrastructure construction, maintenance and management.
Extension of the existing night train Vienna / Innsbruck-Düsseldorf to Amsterdam is currently one of the ideas. But ÖBB (Austrian Railways) and NS indicate that due to the high costs, the operation of this connection is not possible without a subsidy. New, private rail operators dispute this view and point to the need for a level playing field for all carriers. According to them, that is not the case now.
KiM carried out the study on behalf of the Public Transport and Rail Directorate of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management (IenW). The publication can be downloaded from the KiM website.
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