The NS will run fewer trains from 7 February because more and more employees are at home due to illness or because they have to quarantine due to the corona rules. On routes where there are currently six trains per hour, there will soon be four, the NS reports. On routes where the NS now runs four trains per hour, there will be two.

“By temporarily scaling down the timetable, we create more space to absorb the increasing reports of illness,” says the NS. “In this way, our timetable remains more predictable and we hope that we will have to surprise our travelers less often with sudden train failures. In addition, we think it is important that our sick colleagues have the opportunity to recover.”

For the coming days, the NS is taking into account the occasional breakdown of trains because there may be fewer conductors and drivers to drive the trains and there may be fewer mechanics to maintain the trains.

Scale down

The NS will start scaling down the timetable on 7 February. The scaling down takes place in steps. The NS wants to have implemented all changes by 21 February. From that date, 85 percent of all NS trains will run.

Since 20 December, the NS has temporarily reduced trains in the evening, night and rush hour. NS currently transports just over 40 percent of the usual number of passengers.

Premature

Travelers' association Rover thinks it is premature that the NS is already announcing "out of fear of staff loss" that it will run fewer trains in February. “The fact that fewer trains are sometimes running due to illness and quarantine is force majeure, but chopping the train offer with a blunt ax in advance is a completely different story,” says Rover director Freek Bos. “After 22 months of experience with the pandemic, NS should now be able to deal flexibly with staff loss.”

The travelers' association points out that it is important to allow more trains to run where possible, in order to be of good service to returning passengers on public transport. Rover wants NS to review daily whether the timetable should be scaled down, as is now the case when, for example, snow is forecast.

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