Organizing capacity on Dutch rail is becoming an increasingly complicated task for ProRail.
The annual allocation of this capacity, which takes place in August and leads to the timetable that starts in December, becomes more challenging every year. This is mainly due to the increase in large-scale rail work and the growing demand for train paths, both from passenger and freight transport companies.
ProRail's Capacity Management department faces the challenge of dividing the capacity for 2025 among more than forty different carriers, including national and international players. This complex puzzle not only involves allocating train paths, but also planning necessary outages for track maintenance work. “The amount of major track work has increased by thirty percent since 2020,” says a ProRail spokesperson. “We had to schedule fourteen percent more work for 2025 than the year before.”
In addition to the increasing amount of work, there are also other factors that complicate the puzzle. One of the challenges in 2025 is dealing with temporary speed limits (TSBs) on various routes, including the High-Speed Line. In addition, the 80-week work on the German side of the Betuwe Route will result in diversions of freight trains via the Brabant Route, which puts extra pressure on the Dutch rail network.
ProRail faces the challenge of guaranteeing a reliable and efficient timetable despite the increasing complexity of the rail network. The capacity allocation for 2025 is a crucial step in that process, with the aim of keeping the Netherlands accessible by rail in the coming years.
Market forces on the railways are also increasing, leading to more applications for so-called open access routes. These are routes on which passenger carriers can operate without a concession. This may result in requests being received for routes where concession transport already takes place. There are requests from both new and existing carriers for 2025. A notable newcomer is GoVolta, which plans to run international trains several times a day from May 2025. NS International and Arriva have also submitted applications for open access connections. It is striking that the number of applications for freight paths in 2025 will be lower than in previous years, which is probably due to the current economic conditions.
Another important aspect that ProRail has focused on this year is the reliability of the timetable. The 2024 timetable turned out to be insufficiently reliable in practice, even though it was theoretically correct.
An example of this is the PHS Rijswijk-Rotterdam project, where the planned work could not be fully carried out due to personnel shortages among contractors and stricter occupational health and safety legislation. This led to extended outages in the summer and autumn, causing passengers to experience longer inconveniences. However, this has the advantage that the project can be completed in November 2024, which means that more trains can run on this route in the 2025 timetable, with six Sprinters and eight Intercitys per hour.
ProRail functions as an independent party in the distribution of the available space on the Dutch rail network, which includes more than 7000 kilometers of track and more than 400 stations. The challenge is to divide the space efficiently, taking into account the many wishes of both passenger and freight transporters. Every year, more than thirty carriers submit their wishes to ProRail, after which an intensive planning process follows that ultimately leads to capacity allocation in August.
To help solve this complex puzzle, create PRORAIL use of an advanced planning system that can plan with accuracy of up to six seconds, a significant improvement over the old system that planned per minute. This enables ProRail to plan even more accurately and create space on the busy Dutch track. In addition, ProRail is working on a way to quickly and safely adjust the timetable when necessary. “We now plan at least three minutes of 'space' between two trains,” says Niels Bik of ProRail ICT. “We want to move to a system based on the actual occupancy of the track – is there a train running on this stretch of track or not?”
