According to the
letter NS submitted to the LOCOV (somewhat comparable to Transport Focus) NS are planning even further cuts than what their press release claims. Several routes are planned to be reduced to hourly services during evenings and weekends.
The LOCOV published it's response today: a 20 page letter which is unprecedentedly critical on how NS is planning to tackle the staff shortages and to reduce frequencies.
Just as a bit of background: the LOCOV ("
Landelijk Overleg Consumentenorganisaties Openbaar Vervoer", a co-operation of various consumer groups on countrywide level) has the legal right to give advise on the plans of NS. The advise cannot be simply ignored, but NS isn't obliged to agree. They can reject proposals based on relevant arguments.
The full letter
can be found here. It's in Dutch and Google Translate seems to have some trouble translating this PDF, so below I'll place some sections translated by Google. Haven't seen such a critical advise before.
LOCOV on the causes of the reductions:
You talk about a downscaling of 10% compared to 2019. The percentage of travelers however, that is significantly higher than 10% due to fewer travel options. We think it is fundamentally incorrect that you communicate a percentage compared to 2019. The timetable has been extended since 2019. Based on the number of trips and the number of timetable hours, the scaling down is, as far as we can see, about 13% on average compared to the originally proposed timetable. On the weekend this is even 15 to 20%. On some routes and times of the week there is even a halving the number of trains.
You indicate that you were prepared for the high outflow of personnel as a result of (early) retirement, but that the combination with the shortage on the labor market and The persistently higher absenteeism due to illness leads to a shortage of personnel, in particular among conductors. We see a remarkable dip in recruitment. Where you in 2018 and 2019 still recruited more than 4000 new employees, in 2020 there were only 2800. In 2021 this number was more than 3700. The current number of vacancies is more or less more corresponds to the much lower recruitment in 2020. We therefore believe that you do not has complied with article 72 paragraph 1 c of the transport concession that obliges you to ensure retention of staffing to the extent necessary for the implementation of the concession.
What follows are some suggestions:
With the proposed scaling down of the timetable to become more efficient. Although you cancel some rush hour services, but at the same time, you also cancel many trains during off-peak hours. As a result, there remain to our expect many half shifts and may even increase. This costs relatively much staff capacity. You would therefore train more trains with the same amount of staff can continue to drive. We recommend investigating whether the same amount of personnel services the offer during off-peak hours can be expanded, with priority being the edges of the rush hour.
And about the reductions themselves:
Quality, predictability and reliability
The timetable has been highly unpredictable and unreliable in recent months become. Several train series regularly fall out completely in one day and these were also other measures. Travelers are often also surprised because you pay considerably more trains than you announced the week before. The scope of this ad hoc scaling is also unprecedented. Repeated times you did not even meet the concession requirement to train 2x per hour between the major stations included in the concession to drive. The passenger must be offered a timetable of sufficient quality and must can build on this timetable. If a traveler too often a negative experience has too low frequencies and the (unexpected) breakdown of trains can cause this 8 cause him to drop out. We therefore think it is important that the timetable in 2023 is predictable and reliable. Ad hoc scaling should no longer be allowed especially now that you are structurally canceling so many trains from the timetable.
Consistent choices
It is also difficult in parts to discover a consistent line in the proposed measures compared to the measures you have so far taken. For example, you have currently canceled trains that will resume from December start driving (ten-minute train Eindhoven-Amsterdam). You are also currently deleting ad hoc for staff-scarce trains that will continue to run before 2023 in your proposal. There is compared to the fact that in 2023 you will cancel trains that are always with earlier scaling down continue to drive and who also currently continue to drive in the event of ad hoc scaling down.
Spreading Travelers
You propose two instead of two on some routes in the Randstad on Wednesday and Friday to drive four intercity trains during rush hour. On other routes, the timetable is during rush hour only adjusted on Friday, on yet other routes there are only scalings in the off-peak hours and the weekend and there is even a route where you can enjoy the whole on Wednesday and Friday day trains but it continues to run on weekends. This makes the timetables are highly complicated and therefore unpredictable for the traveler.
Lastly, some critisism is given about specific measures which doesn't seem very efficient use of scarce staff:
On most routes, a train continues to run twice an hour. On a number of routes however, you will only drive once per hour in the evenings and/or at the weekend. This lowers your service to an unacceptable level. This makes a lot of travelers reconsider their mode of travel and the aforementioned connections end up in a negative spiral. In addition, we note that the gain in personnel hours on several of these trajectories is small or even nil. For example, the Sprinter Deurne-'s-Hertogenbosch (train series 4400) during the weekend reverses in 's-Hertogenbosch in 55 minutes. We see for it staff few opportunities to transfer to other trains. The Sprinter Weert - Tilburg University (train series 6400) will receive a during the weekend at Tilburg University turn of 37 minutes. We see no opportunities for staff to transfer get on other trains. In our estimation, this means 50% of the saving of personnel deployment is lost on the route between Tilburg University and Eindhoven Central.
