Seat availability at peak times on HSL South

Our aim is to provide excellent service to our passengers on the high-speed line. To that end, we intend to further improve our performance within the existing parameters set by infrastructure and rolling stock. We have already been quite successful when it comes to seat availability on the high-speed line. Despite the further increase in passenger numbers on the busiest section between Rotterdam and Schiphol Airport (+7.7%), seat availability on HSL South in 2019 was higher than in 2018: 97.1% compared with 94.0%. This improved score can largely be attributed to the additional seating capacity (+32%) from the use of more and longer trains. More trains, because the frequency of IC Direct between Amsterdam and Rotterdam was increased by adding IC Brussels as the fifth hourly train on HSL South. And longer trains, because we extended all domestic IC Direct trains by adding a seventh carriage. Effective December 2019, some trains between Rotterdam and Amsterdam even have nine carriages. Finally, improved operational performance – and especially the decrease in the number of cancelled services – favourably influenced seat availability on HSL South.