Travelers get less value for money, train tickets should be cheaper.
Consumer organization Rover is critical of the rate increase as a whole. “Travellers get less value for their money, train tickets should be cheaper,” says Rover director Freek Bos. NS is currently running 13 percent fewer trains that are often short and crowded.
Due to the increased energy prices in the past year, everything has become almost 12 percent more expensive. However, NS cannot pass this inflation on to passengers. Difficult negotiations with trade unions and a wage agreement reached also play a role in this. A single or return ticket in the second class increases 5,5 percent in price, a first-class ticket about 7,5 percent.
NS wants to retain regular passengers, but does want to increase the difference in price between a first-class and second-class car. According to Smit, traveler organizations that have been allowed to respond to the planned rate increases also think so. Smit nuances the increase at NS because compared to bus, metro and tram that will become 7 percent more expensive in January, NS is not doing so badly.
"Trajectory subscriptions are falling by 2,4 percent. In this way we make it as attractive as possible for commuters to travel by train."
Rover and the other consumer organizations find NS's plans surprising. With fewer trains, longer journey times, fuller trains and extra transfers, the substantial price increase is in no way justified. The consumer organizations are therefore arguing for the complete abandonment of price increases. So far, NS has only not increased the fares in 2002, due to poor performance at the time. “It is difficult to maintain that you will deliver good performance in 2023, with at least a structural failure through scaling down of 13 percent of the trains,” argue the consumer organizations in a letter to NS.
“It would be to the credit of the company to take the train passenger's problems seriously and to refrain from any price increase in view of the poor quality of service. We see it as a social duty of NS not to chase passengers off the train. Even without an exorbitant price increase, NS will have to pull out all the stops for this in 2023.”
NS is now really asking too much of the passenger. Given the poor service provided by NS at the moment, however, only one thing is appropriate: freezing prices. Rover writes this together with consumer organizations in the Locov to NS. There may be a small drop for our ticket in the future. NS hopes that the VAT on train tickets will disappear, something that has recently been allowed by Brussels and is currently being investigated by the Ministry of Finance.
