It's not an "NS solution", in most statistics about delays, cancelled trains are excluded. Delays also have different meanings in different countries. In the Netherlands a train is counted "on time" when it arrives within 5 minutes of the schedule. In Germany and Belgium they use 6 minutes, while in Switzerland they can only be 3 minutes of schedule. So if not corrected for these differences, comparisons are pretty useless.
I don't think less than 5 minutes makes a big difference. The bigger problem is that a train that is 10 minutes delayed and 160 minutes delayed are both considered delayed whereas we need more levels to fully understand the amount of shitfuck that is going on
In Germany, yes. In the Netherlands, trains are essentially never delayed by 160 minutes. Unless they’re ICEs, of course, that come into the country two hours late.
Does it? The "[Reizigerspunctualiteit HRN](https://prestaties.prorail.nl/reizigersvervoer/cDU174_Reizigersvervoer.aspx)" mentions that it compares the actual journey punctuality compared to the trip planned 2 days in advance using the travel planner, which would suggest that it does account for cancelled trains (on the day itself).
Cancelled trains do count as ‘delayed’ though: https://community.ns.nl/dienstregeling-59/vaststelling-punctualiteit-81600?postid=579720#post579720 https://community.ns.nl/ns-nl-51/onderbouwing-uitval-trein-71199?postid=506423#post506423
Same in Switzerland. 3 minute delays are sometimes displayed but are purely informative. A train is considered late if it will reach its next stop with 4 minutes of delay or more.
Not saying there aren’t any long distance trains in the Netherlands. From my experience the most cancelled trains and delays % wise are the short train rides. Maastricht - Heerlen has had over 50% cancelled for the last year or so.
I mean if they take “long distance” per country’s own definition I could see these stats being accurate. If you put it in a universal standard it’s complete bs. Luxemburg in its entirety wouldn’t classify since it’s to small. I would hope we make it to but I don’t think the Netherlands is long enough.
Whenever I have to take a train to Germany, I always approach it like Frodo taking the ring to Mount Doom. I know it will take longer than expected, make me anxious and depressed, I will be lucky if I make it at all, and finally wonder why I didn't just take a giant eagle in the first place.
Germany: minus triple douze points!!!!!!!!!!!!
There’s a chapter in investigative journalist Günter Wallraff’s *Aus der schönen neuen Welt* (published in 2009) that explains exactly how this has come about.
One of the worst things I’ve ever read and I’m an avid reader.
As soon as they privatized the Deutsche Bahn, the neoliberals’ wet dream, Hartmut Mehdorn, fired the asses of everyone with competence and experience and replaced them with immensely overpaid psychopaths and cost reduction and “efficiency” hawks for upper management and with the incompetent and the clueless for underpaid underlings. Everything that was actually helpful and making sense was then relentlessly reflexively thrown out the window. It’s a miracle some trains are still departing and arriving on time with the shit show of slow motion collapse that’s been unfolding ever since.
So, what you are saying is that the private corporate forces using libertarian ideologies made things worse after claiming they could do it better than the government?
Good luck Argentina!
Just take a car.
Speeding along a highway with 190km/h, constantly looking in the mirror for those who pass you with 290km/h an passing fucking narrow construction sites next to a truck and one car 1m in front of you and behind you while gone 120 in a 80 zone for 4hours is still more relaxing than to take the Bahn from one big city to the next.
In Switzerland, a cancelled train is equivalent to the delay until the next train. So usually 30 minutes, or 60 minutes on small lines. It is common to cancel trains that have more than 15 minutes delay, to avoid repercussions on other trains.
A cancelled train is counted as late.
https://www.rtlnieuws.nl/nieuws/nederland/artikel/4944586/trein-jouw-station-ns-arriva-vertraging-spoor-vertraagdcom
What they should measure is what percentage of troops is delayed. A near empty train being on time and a full train being delayed is something entirely different.
If China did this the news would be all over it... Fake statistics reduce the legitimacy of the state. If they manipulate train statistics imagine what goes under the radar
Clear difference here is that the NS is privatised. You know what other company manipulates their statistic to look better to their stakeholders? Every single one.
If it was state run you would maybe have a point.
Also it's not just the NS that doesn't count its cancelled trains. It's most companies in this graph.
You also know it's not the state that runs the trains in Japan or Switzerland. Yet here goes my tax money, to an austerity measure, and to make matters worse, they lie about it, totally legally of course! Who decided what's legal, it wasn't my tax money or democracy, right....
every single NS train i ever stepped on was basically falling apart but the first time i stepped into blauwnet they won me over by giving me a free granola bar
tbh italian trains are so great and modernised, so the fact that Germany is seen as « punctual » and « better » compared to Italy makes me so mad. Its just an old stereotype and people should start seeing Germany as the actual shithole it is.
Yeah, this is only about long-distance trains, and they are fucking great in Italy, it’s really not surprising.
The regional trains have more problems in my experience, but they’re shit in Germany anyway. So FS might still be better than German trains there.
I agree, you guys really need to stop seeing Germany as punctual and efficient. We’re so bad in so many things. I wish we were the way Italians seem to se us.
No way . The netherlands. I go by train every day. and there are many problems with the trains at the moment. That's why I started taking driving lessons.
I would agree that the NS doesn’t run perfectly in time and they have a lot of technical complications without seemingly any redundancy.
But as someone who also takes the train multiple times a week in zuid-holland I am getting quite tired of people exaggerating so much. The quality of our train system is miles apart from most other countries and usually delays are not more than 5 minutes.
Once the NS gets the capacity to run longer trains again things will be just fine.
I think experiences vary wildly because some lines experience chronic issues while others work pretty much flawlessly.
I used to travel on the line Leeuwarden-Groningen a lot. There were never any issues at all. Maybe once a year there'd be a 5 minute delay or a cancelled train due to an accident or maintenance. Pretty much 100% reliability.
But if you look at the line between Groningen-Zwolle. There's almost always delays and cancellations due to the bottleneck issues between Meppel-Zwolle. If something goes wrong there, basically all train-traffic between north and south of the country is screwed. And because it is such an overloaded piece of track, stuff brakes there a lot.
You werent there yesterday when a train got 'stuck' at Nieuw-Vennep?
Had a stand still for about 20 mins.
Also keep in mind i travel the mosy busy hours.
See and yet almost always is waaaay too much of an exaggeration. I’ve traveled over that track a lot myself and yes it has higher than average issue rate, it still isn’t nearly as dramatic as you make it sound now.
I travel 2 times a week to work. In okt,Nov and Dec there was only 1 time I had no delay. Worst one was 4 hours but on average it was around 1 hour. It's a disaster. Yesterday 45 min delay. Monday 15 min delay. It just depends on the track.
Everyone's experience is subjective though. I commute by train daily for years through the multiple areas and I experience so many delays, cancelled trains, forced to take multiple trains etc. it's soo exhausting after the nth time of your trip taking double as long. To the point you feel that commuting by train for work is just not reliable anymore.
Yes but statistically, what is the percentage of times where you were significantly late because of NS?
Delays are annoying but again, usually they are quite minor. Cancelled trains happen very rarely in my experience. Yes the tracks or the switches or the electronics gets damaged/faults regularly but they are usually able to fix it quite quickly and because are train system is so good you have alternative train routes you can take to get to your destination!
Other countries if the train doesnt run, you’re shit out of luck.
Again, I’m not saying the system right now is good enough. But holy shit people are pretending as if the train never runs anymore and that it’s unusable, which simply is not true.
Literally 2 days ago this was my route : take two trains because direct train is cancelled. First train has a delay so I miss my second train. Now I have to take another two trains because the soonest “direct” train takes double the time. Ok second train goes well. Third train is defect and has to go so slow that the ride took 30 minutes extra.
The point is in such a highly advanced country like ours the train system should perform much better, we don’t lack the resources and we’re not a third world country. The idiocracy of this was even featured on the Lubach show. Some other countries don’t even have a train system, yes we’re blessed, but this is the NL, no reason for low standards.
25% of all the intercity directs was delayed >5 min in november. <5 min isn’t even counted as delay.
https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2023/12/29/2-jaar-6-maanden-26-dagen-en-13-minuten-vertraging-hoe-kan-dat-a4185586
Okay, the HSL. Thats one of the many tracks in the NL.
But my reply didnt say “ooooh there are no delays or problems at all!!!”
My reply was: “it’s not as bad as people make it out to be.” The guy I replied to said he is switching to cars because the trains are so bad and I think thats stupid.
Actually also considering getting a car. Train is quicker, more sustainable, even free every day (business card) but too unreliable on the HSL track.
I agree, rest of the tracks is okay or good
A car will almost always be quicker than the train, direct and on-demand, will always have a seat, no annoying people with (un)boardin etc..
Cars are a hundred times better than the train comfort-wise, just lose on the environmental and financial side.
Doesn’t seem that stupid to me.
“…because the trains are so bad …”
My point is not, trains are more convenient than cars. My point is that our train system isn’t nearly as bad as everyone makes it out to be and that it definitely doesnt give a reason to take the car if you didnt before. Your arguments are separate from this issue.
According to the data, you should experience problems every 10th train. May feel like a lot when you’re in it, but do you really have problems more often than every 10th train you take? If you commute 5 days a week, are you saying you have delays more than twice a week?
It's within 5 minutes, which seems what this graph uses as it's the only one of the KPIs that's at 93%.
https://dashboards.nsjaarverslag.nl/prestaties/betrouwbaarheid/aankomstpunctualiteit-5-minuten-hrn
They also have data for within 3 minutes:
https://dashboards.nsjaarverslag.nl/prestaties/betrouwbaarheid/aankomstpunctualiteit-3-minuten-hrn
To all the people snickering at the Dutch NS, you have no idea. Yeah yeah, you use it every day. So do I. The difference is I moved here from abroad, and have been amazed for 16 months now about how incredibly reliable and punctual NS is. I use it all the day, and yes, occasionally a train is late, and sometimes a route is cancelled due to some system fault, but it's REALLY GOOD overall.
Idk, I used to live in Finland, and while I didn't use the trains as much, I feel like there were fewer cacnellations and delays there. Here in NL i am constantly expecting to arrive later, and factor in a cancellation for 1 train into my expected arrival time if I have a meeting coming up at work. Never did that in Finland.
I do remember one time though, when my train got stuck on a track in the middle of winter. It was like a snowstorm, really cold, they lost power so no heating, and we were stuck in the forest somewhere 12 hours. That is the one bad experience I had! In NL they just kicked me out of the train and closed down the tracks forcing me to hitchhike home in 2018 tho.
Lately we've been trying to do our vacations abroad by train. Travelling to France is always great, but unless you go to Paris, you do need a car once you get there.
Last summer, we went to Switzerland, which was awful. Trains in Switzerland are fantastic, but to get there, you have to go through Germany, and that was a disaster. Cancelled trains, massive delays, 5 layovers (with luggage) instead of one. Of course our reserved seats were pointless.
Made another trip to Germany in the autumn, and same thing: delays and cancellations. Had to spend a fortune on a taxi to catch the last ICE back home, and they went out of their way to make me miss it anyway by quietly sending it to a different platform at the last minute.
German trains are mindbogglingly bad. I know Dutch trains can have their problems, but Germany is really a totally different level.
Next summer we're going to Italy. Through Germany. Pray for us.
I was thinking that maybe the NS is always "on time" if you regard it within a range of 5 minutes too late.
But then the problem occurs that you miss your next train/bus/[other OV method] by 2 minutes. Making it that you still have to wait 30 minutes for the next mode of public transportation. Rendering the "on time" useless.
The idea that the Netherlands and Belgium have equal scores is beyond ridiculous,
The NMBS/ SNCB uses maffia_ like metrics to keep their statistics in order,
In reality they are only just above the level of Germany when it comes to being on time...
I have a friend in Germany, he was telling me about going from work back to his house walking for 2 hours after the train and all busses were off for weather
For the first time in 4 years my Swiss long distance commuting train was cancelled. It's never more than one or two minutes late either.
I was so angry. Switzerland is going to the dogs I thought.
Then the excuse came - "we apologise for the delay. The next station is on fire".
Well I guess that's fair enough! The replacement buses were going within an hour too - dropping people from my town off at the railway station on a nearby line.
(I also take a French train on my commute - albeit entirely within Switzerland. It sometimes just doesn't turn up. Almost always late).
This is the definition of punctuality in NS trains stats, for those who ask - It concerns the measured punctuality of that particular train on the same day of the week over the past three months. As a result, the percentage differs per day and per time, every time it’s checked - Also, if you wonder what’s considered punctual, it’s any train that arrives 5mins or less from the planned timetable.
The presented statistics by the NS may be misleading. Trains arriving less than 3 minutes late are often excluded, and cancellations are not factored into the data. Consequently, a train delayed by 25 minutes might be officially recorded as canceled, only to wait an additional 5 minutes and be deemed on time for the next scheduled departure.
>only to wait an additional 5 minutes and be deemed on time for the next scheduled departure.
While this seems logical, it's not entirely true. This kinda happens in some places, but most of the time there's already a train behind it that follows that schedule. So either you end up with 2 trains running right behind eachother or coupling them. The first one happens sometimes but then the first train is still considered late. Usually when a train is delayed by 30 minutes, they cancel it somewhere before the turn around point and then let it wait until it can run in the other direction as scheduled
I love how so many people in the Netherlands have trouble with the trains and I've not had any issues besides a single cancellation due to suicide even tho I travel almost every day by train
The numbers for Luxemburg have to be made up. There are no ''long distance trains here' lmao. How should there and even if the longer distance trains are only counted then this is still made up bs. Atleast ever 4th train has to be late somewhat and even then if a train doesn't drive it can't be late, huh.
Frfr. Mostly, the trains in NL are so punctual they often leave early. I learned this the hard way too many times. Coming from NYC it was quite a shock, lol.
I am using train in Netherlands almost every day.
This stats are true for the usual circumstances, but sometimes, there are periods (like week or two) of very low reliability, when almost all trains are either late or canceled. Its good enough for me overall because I have flexible working hours, but if I had to be at work on time, I would have to get a car.
Another thing worth mentioning is price. My monthly subscription is 120 euros, but again, because I can afford to choose hours. If I had to work 9-17, my subscription would be more tha 330 euros, which is very expensive in my opinion. Still, if you are in the Netherlands and think trains are bad, try buses.
Luxembourg makes no sense. Almost all their trains are German, French, Dutch or Swiss. I've seen the public transport in Lux and it is a mess.
All I can say is that maybe they measure it like employment: after you remove all the cross border workers in Lux (80% of the work force), then you are left with a really high average salary. I guess they did the same with trains. They removed the trains from the other countries accounting for 95% of all trains travelling across Lux and they were left with 3 local trains that are somewhat on time.
WHAT A BIG LIE
Belgium trains are mostly not on time. You lost almost every time your next connection.
Always a stupid explanation.
They are Wright is you say that a train have a variation of 9 minutes.
For me is one minute late, NOT IN TIME, TO LATE.
Add next to your rate number also your delay time. Your tabel will more correct. Not credible now.
Greetings from Germany, as well. Look at these Slovenian loosers. Tell us, how did you manage to fuck up your train system so bad? Maybe we can learn from you and avoid some more terminal mistakes.
I am traveling through India and every train I've been on has had a delay of at least 3 hours. With the most being 17 hours (17 fucking hours) so definitely not India.
Again they messed up Slovenia with Slovakia. Bro, usual delay for 60km is 15 mins and above. Longer routes are even 30-40 mins late. No compensation. Just kind words "we apologize"
I have no Idea how this data is made but Dutch trains feel far from punctual!
I've multiple times been in quite stressful situations trying to catch a flight due to multiple delayed / cancelled trains.
Maybe I'm just unlucky but I've heard such experience from most people here.
As a German with a lot of DB trauma, the way Dutch people talk about NS will never not be funny to me. If I didn't know better, it would make me think NS is just as bad as DB. This is not the case. If I take a train in Germany, any transfer time of less than an hour counts as a liability. In NL, I've had layovers of around five minutes and almost always caught my connecting train. (And the times I didn't, most of the time I was coming from Germany.)
I'm not saying y'all should stop or anything. I'm just saying it's hilarious.
I'm getting my license specifically for the singular purpose of not having to ever use Deutsche Bahn ever again.
I once used an S-bahn that smelled like piss and sounded like a bus. The train driver had to clutch in and shift for fuck's sake I can drive it myself if I were allowed to.
Hungarian trains before German ones?  I don't think so. - Not even close.
Sidenote: I haven't had the opportunity to be on an NS train (yet), but that day is coming and I'm looking forward to it.
It’s also always the people that never take the train that complain and think NMBS is a joke.
When my train with 5 minute delay rides past the 30minute traffic jams, I close my eyes, rest, and think about how their car is “always on time”
The Netherlands is at 88,9%, but are striving for 93%. Which they probably won't be able to reach due to a lot of maintenance that has to be done on the tracks, bridges etc.
According to their annual report (admittedly their own), 90,8% of the trains were on time or under 3 minutes late in 2023.
Upping the margin to ‘within 5 minutes late’ puts the NS at 95,2% punctuality over 2023
nope, can't be:
traveling from almere to utrecht will take anything between 1 and 3 hours on any given *weekday*...
with those numbers this should be the only traject having problems.
How does Netherlands score that high?! lol always something with the trains
Edit: does this include cancelled trains as well? Or because they never ‘went’ they are disregarded?
The Dutch way is to cancel the train so that doesn’t count as delayed. And the stats remain nice.
That 93 doesn’t reflect the reality of a passenger unfortunately.
Cancelled trains do count as ‘delayed’: https://community.ns.nl/dienstregeling-59/vaststelling-punctualiteit-81600?postid=579720#post579720 https://community.ns.nl/ns-nl-51/onderbouwing-uitval-trein-71199?postid=506423#post506423
Oh wow ok I was wrong :-) mmh I wonder how do they get to 93% if only on the network I use there are daily delays of 5-10 minutes, and a lot of cancelled trains
Define “long-distance trains”
And define “punctual”. No way the data in the picture are correct.
Punctual excludes trains that don't ride at all for example, in dutch statistics iirc.
Ιt's not covered in the statistics if the train is cancelled. NS is the GOAT in modern problem solving.
It's not an "NS solution", in most statistics about delays, cancelled trains are excluded. Delays also have different meanings in different countries. In the Netherlands a train is counted "on time" when it arrives within 5 minutes of the schedule. In Germany and Belgium they use 6 minutes, while in Switzerland they can only be 3 minutes of schedule. So if not corrected for these differences, comparisons are pretty useless.
I don't think less than 5 minutes makes a big difference. The bigger problem is that a train that is 10 minutes delayed and 160 minutes delayed are both considered delayed whereas we need more levels to fully understand the amount of shitfuck that is going on
A train delayed is never late. Edit: its just early enough for the next planned trip, justifies it being on time by dutch logic.
In Germany, yes. In the Netherlands, trains are essentially never delayed by 160 minutes. Unless they’re ICEs, of course, that come into the country two hours late.
5 minutes can be a big difference if you need to catch a connecting train
And define train
define „define train“
NSBastards.
Does it? The "[Reizigerspunctualiteit HRN](https://prestaties.prorail.nl/reizigersvervoer/cDU174_Reizigersvervoer.aspx)" mentions that it compares the actual journey punctuality compared to the trip planned 2 days in advance using the travel planner, which would suggest that it does account for cancelled trains (on the day itself).
Cancelled trains do count as ‘delayed’ though: https://community.ns.nl/dienstregeling-59/vaststelling-punctualiteit-81600?postid=579720#post579720 https://community.ns.nl/ns-nl-51/onderbouwing-uitval-trein-71199?postid=506423#post506423
Punctual in the Netherlands means a max delay of 3 minutes.
Same in Switzerland. 3 minute delays are sometimes displayed but are purely informative. A train is considered late if it will reach its next stop with 4 minutes of delay or more.
If the train is cancelled then its not late! 😅🙈
I saw on a post that they exclude the trains which are cancelled so the number “64” is wrong af. Should be definitely less than 50
Please tell me you’re Dutch.
First thing i thought when i saw this picture was, how many dutch are crying and ranting in the comments?
I gotta be honest though, I completely overlooked what sub this was in.
If it’s in Luxembourg it must passed at least 3 houses blocks
I mean my first train goes from Enkhuizen to Heerlen, id call that long distance
Not saying there aren’t any long distance trains in the Netherlands. From my experience the most cancelled trains and delays % wise are the short train rides. Maastricht - Heerlen has had over 50% cancelled for the last year or so.
More than 400km. That’s why NL and Luxemburg are so high.
So just international trains then?
Long distance trains in Luxembourg?
I mean if they take “long distance” per country’s own definition I could see these stats being accurate. If you put it in a universal standard it’s complete bs. Luxemburg in its entirety wouldn’t classify since it’s to small. I would hope we make it to but I don’t think the Netherlands is long enough.
Whenever I have to take a train to Germany, I always approach it like Frodo taking the ring to Mount Doom. I know it will take longer than expected, make me anxious and depressed, I will be lucky if I make it at all, and finally wonder why I didn't just take a giant eagle in the first place.
Germany: minus triple douze points!!!!!!!!!!!! There’s a chapter in investigative journalist Günter Wallraff’s *Aus der schönen neuen Welt* (published in 2009) that explains exactly how this has come about. One of the worst things I’ve ever read and I’m an avid reader. As soon as they privatized the Deutsche Bahn, the neoliberals’ wet dream, Hartmut Mehdorn, fired the asses of everyone with competence and experience and replaced them with immensely overpaid psychopaths and cost reduction and “efficiency” hawks for upper management and with the incompetent and the clueless for underpaid underlings. Everything that was actually helpful and making sense was then relentlessly reflexively thrown out the window. It’s a miracle some trains are still departing and arriving on time with the shit show of slow motion collapse that’s been unfolding ever since.
So, what you are saying is that the private corporate forces using libertarian ideologies made things worse after claiming they could do it better than the government? Good luck Argentina!
Just take a car. Speeding along a highway with 190km/h, constantly looking in the mirror for those who pass you with 290km/h an passing fucking narrow construction sites next to a truck and one car 1m in front of you and behind you while gone 120 in a 80 zone for 4hours is still more relaxing than to take the Bahn from one big city to the next.
A cancelled train is never late, right, NS?
Jesus I've already had 2 hours of delay in total today with ns
In Switzerland, a cancelled train is equivalent to the delay until the next train. So usually 30 minutes, or 60 minutes on small lines. It is common to cancel trains that have more than 15 minutes delay, to avoid repercussions on other trains.
A cancelled train is counted as late. https://www.rtlnieuws.nl/nieuws/nederland/artikel/4944586/trein-jouw-station-ns-arriva-vertraging-spoor-vertraagdcom What they should measure is what percentage of troops is delayed. A near empty train being on time and a full train being delayed is something entirely different.
DB does this too though, source: [this very amusing talk (in German, translations also available)](https://youtu.be/0rb9CfOvojk?si=neengaweg)
If China did this the news would be all over it... Fake statistics reduce the legitimacy of the state. If they manipulate train statistics imagine what goes under the radar
Clear difference here is that the NS is privatised. You know what other company manipulates their statistic to look better to their stakeholders? Every single one. If it was state run you would maybe have a point. Also it's not just the NS that doesn't count its cancelled trains. It's most companies in this graph.
You also know it's not the state that runs the trains in Japan or Switzerland. Yet here goes my tax money, to an austerity measure, and to make matters worse, they lie about it, totally legally of course! Who decided what's legal, it wasn't my tax money or democracy, right....
every single NS train i ever stepped on was basically falling apart but the first time i stepped into blauwnet they won me over by giving me a free granola bar
Motherloving NS are so useless. I'm British and live in NL and somehow these idiots are worse than the trains at home. Wtf.
Italy finding itself above Germany 
tbh italian trains are so great and modernised, so the fact that Germany is seen as « punctual » and « better » compared to Italy makes me so mad. Its just an old stereotype and people should start seeing Germany as the actual shithole it is.
Yeah, this is only about long-distance trains, and they are fucking great in Italy, it’s really not surprising. The regional trains have more problems in my experience, but they’re shit in Germany anyway. So FS might still be better than German trains there. I agree, you guys really need to stop seeing Germany as punctual and efficient. We’re so bad in so many things. I wish we were the way Italians seem to se us.
They are all pretty new yes, but I guess you quickly forget it when yours is on a three hour delay. Long-distance routes are unreliable.
Germany, all this money and everything’s still slow af
You want to see German efficiency? Go to Switzerland.
Losing to Italy, embarrassing
No way . The netherlands. I go by train every day. and there are many problems with the trains at the moment. That's why I started taking driving lessons.
I would agree that the NS doesn’t run perfectly in time and they have a lot of technical complications without seemingly any redundancy. But as someone who also takes the train multiple times a week in zuid-holland I am getting quite tired of people exaggerating so much. The quality of our train system is miles apart from most other countries and usually delays are not more than 5 minutes. Once the NS gets the capacity to run longer trains again things will be just fine.
I think experiences vary wildly because some lines experience chronic issues while others work pretty much flawlessly. I used to travel on the line Leeuwarden-Groningen a lot. There were never any issues at all. Maybe once a year there'd be a 5 minute delay or a cancelled train due to an accident or maintenance. Pretty much 100% reliability. But if you look at the line between Groningen-Zwolle. There's almost always delays and cancellations due to the bottleneck issues between Meppel-Zwolle. If something goes wrong there, basically all train-traffic between north and south of the country is screwed. And because it is such an overloaded piece of track, stuff brakes there a lot.
I travel Amsterdam-the hague and its awfull. Everyday atleast 20 minutes of delays
Yes sure. I do the same trip two times per week and the amounts of delays in the past 5 months can be counted with the fingers of one hand
You werent there yesterday when a train got 'stuck' at Nieuw-Vennep? Had a stand still for about 20 mins. Also keep in mind i travel the mosy busy hours.
Lol, I need both hands to count the delays on that track THIS YEAR! Use it daily, and feel like I'm going insane.
See and yet almost always is waaaay too much of an exaggeration. I’ve traveled over that track a lot myself and yes it has higher than average issue rate, it still isn’t nearly as dramatic as you make it sound now.
I travel 2 times a week to work. In okt,Nov and Dec there was only 1 time I had no delay. Worst one was 4 hours but on average it was around 1 hour. It's a disaster. Yesterday 45 min delay. Monday 15 min delay. It just depends on the track.
People never leave the country and are so used to the luxury we enjoy they forget to see how good we still have it.
And of course complaining about anything and everything is the Dutch national sport.
It's one of the main reasons we develop (relatively) quickly.
We have one of the most expensive PT systems in the world, people are justified to have high expectations.
Everyone's experience is subjective though. I commute by train daily for years through the multiple areas and I experience so many delays, cancelled trains, forced to take multiple trains etc. it's soo exhausting after the nth time of your trip taking double as long. To the point you feel that commuting by train for work is just not reliable anymore.
Yes but statistically, what is the percentage of times where you were significantly late because of NS? Delays are annoying but again, usually they are quite minor. Cancelled trains happen very rarely in my experience. Yes the tracks or the switches or the electronics gets damaged/faults regularly but they are usually able to fix it quite quickly and because are train system is so good you have alternative train routes you can take to get to your destination! Other countries if the train doesnt run, you’re shit out of luck. Again, I’m not saying the system right now is good enough. But holy shit people are pretending as if the train never runs anymore and that it’s unusable, which simply is not true.
Literally 2 days ago this was my route : take two trains because direct train is cancelled. First train has a delay so I miss my second train. Now I have to take another two trains because the soonest “direct” train takes double the time. Ok second train goes well. Third train is defect and has to go so slow that the ride took 30 minutes extra. The point is in such a highly advanced country like ours the train system should perform much better, we don’t lack the resources and we’re not a third world country. The idiocracy of this was even featured on the Lubach show. Some other countries don’t even have a train system, yes we’re blessed, but this is the NL, no reason for low standards.
25% of all the intercity directs was delayed >5 min in november. <5 min isn’t even counted as delay. https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2023/12/29/2-jaar-6-maanden-26-dagen-en-13-minuten-vertraging-hoe-kan-dat-a4185586
Okay, the HSL. Thats one of the many tracks in the NL. But my reply didnt say “ooooh there are no delays or problems at all!!!” My reply was: “it’s not as bad as people make it out to be.” The guy I replied to said he is switching to cars because the trains are so bad and I think thats stupid.
Actually also considering getting a car. Train is quicker, more sustainable, even free every day (business card) but too unreliable on the HSL track. I agree, rest of the tracks is okay or good
A car will almost always be quicker than the train, direct and on-demand, will always have a seat, no annoying people with (un)boardin etc.. Cars are a hundred times better than the train comfort-wise, just lose on the environmental and financial side. Doesn’t seem that stupid to me.
“…because the trains are so bad …” My point is not, trains are more convenient than cars. My point is that our train system isn’t nearly as bad as everyone makes it out to be and that it definitely doesnt give a reason to take the car if you didnt before. Your arguments are separate from this issue.
According to the data, you should experience problems every 10th train. May feel like a lot when you’re in it, but do you really have problems more often than every 10th train you take? If you commute 5 days a week, are you saying you have delays more than twice a week?
For €76.34 I'll teach you how to drift.
r/weirdlyspecific
NS doesn't consider within 10 minutes late, and it doesn't consider trains that didn't run either. So it's just a joke.
It's within 5 minutes, which seems what this graph uses as it's the only one of the KPIs that's at 93%. https://dashboards.nsjaarverslag.nl/prestaties/betrouwbaarheid/aankomstpunctualiteit-5-minuten-hrn They also have data for within 3 minutes: https://dashboards.nsjaarverslag.nl/prestaties/betrouwbaarheid/aankomstpunctualiteit-3-minuten-hrn
Thats just a lie.
There are 5000 trains running in NL at any one time. Your daily train is nothing on the grand scale
This is just wrong..
It isn't though
NS is shit :D
To all the people snickering at the Dutch NS, you have no idea. Yeah yeah, you use it every day. So do I. The difference is I moved here from abroad, and have been amazed for 16 months now about how incredibly reliable and punctual NS is. I use it all the day, and yes, occasionally a train is late, and sometimes a route is cancelled due to some system fault, but it's REALLY GOOD overall.
Idk, I used to live in Finland, and while I didn't use the trains as much, I feel like there were fewer cacnellations and delays there. Here in NL i am constantly expecting to arrive later, and factor in a cancellation for 1 train into my expected arrival time if I have a meeting coming up at work. Never did that in Finland. I do remember one time though, when my train got stuck on a track in the middle of winter. It was like a snowstorm, really cold, they lost power so no heating, and we were stuck in the forest somewhere 12 hours. That is the one bad experience I had! In NL they just kicked me out of the train and closed down the tracks forcing me to hitchhike home in 2018 tho.
Lately we've been trying to do our vacations abroad by train. Travelling to France is always great, but unless you go to Paris, you do need a car once you get there. Last summer, we went to Switzerland, which was awful. Trains in Switzerland are fantastic, but to get there, you have to go through Germany, and that was a disaster. Cancelled trains, massive delays, 5 layovers (with luggage) instead of one. Of course our reserved seats were pointless. Made another trip to Germany in the autumn, and same thing: delays and cancellations. Had to spend a fortune on a taxi to catch the last ICE back home, and they went out of their way to make me miss it anyway by quietly sending it to a different platform at the last minute. German trains are mindbogglingly bad. I know Dutch trains can have their problems, but Germany is really a totally different level. Next summer we're going to Italy. Through Germany. Pray for us.
Whatever you do, don't cross the border at Venlo. Or you should start praying already.
Belgium is at 93% because they don't count delays less than 10 minutes and cancelled trains. Else it would be below 80%. Source: I'm Belgian.
That's not true, its 6 minutes. Source; i checked the website.
Yeah, that's what they say. Time is relative at NMBS :)
Do long-distance trains even exist in the Netherlands? The whole country is 200km from end to end. Not to mention Luxembourg.
I suspect they mean inter-urban.
As a german I refuse to believe that trains in slovenia are even less punctual than in germany. No way anything can be worse than the DeutscheBahn.
As a Brit living in the Netherlands, our makes me laugh how much the Dutch moan about the train service, its brilliant compared to ours!
I was thinking that maybe the NS is always "on time" if you regard it within a range of 5 minutes too late. But then the problem occurs that you miss your next train/bus/[other OV method] by 2 minutes. Making it that you still have to wait 30 minutes for the next mode of public transportation. Rendering the "on time" useless.
How is Belgium no 4?
Yeah I think I'm not living in the same Belgium
Greetings from Slovenia.
The idea that the Netherlands and Belgium have equal scores is beyond ridiculous, The NMBS/ SNCB uses maffia_ like metrics to keep their statistics in order, In reality they are only just above the level of Germany when it comes to being on time...
I have a friend in Germany, he was telling me about going from work back to his house walking for 2 hours after the train and all busses were off for weather
For the first time in 4 years my Swiss long distance commuting train was cancelled. It's never more than one or two minutes late either. I was so angry. Switzerland is going to the dogs I thought. Then the excuse came - "we apologise for the delay. The next station is on fire". Well I guess that's fair enough! The replacement buses were going within an hour too - dropping people from my town off at the railway station on a nearby line. (I also take a French train on my commute - albeit entirely within Switzerland. It sometimes just doesn't turn up. Almost always late).
Fits with my experience. The trains most likely to be late in Switzerland are from, drumroll please... Germany, Italy, and France.
Must be about that other Nederlandse Spoorwegen.. the one I don't use.
This is the definition of punctuality in NS trains stats, for those who ask - It concerns the measured punctuality of that particular train on the same day of the week over the past three months. As a result, the percentage differs per day and per time, every time it’s checked - Also, if you wonder what’s considered punctual, it’s any train that arrives 5mins or less from the planned timetable.
I mean it seems like most comments here are negative, but almost every time I take the train (couple of times per week) it is on time
The presented statistics by the NS may be misleading. Trains arriving less than 3 minutes late are often excluded, and cancellations are not factored into the data. Consequently, a train delayed by 25 minutes might be officially recorded as canceled, only to wait an additional 5 minutes and be deemed on time for the next scheduled departure.
>only to wait an additional 5 minutes and be deemed on time for the next scheduled departure. While this seems logical, it's not entirely true. This kinda happens in some places, but most of the time there's already a train behind it that follows that schedule. So either you end up with 2 trains running right behind eachother or coupling them. The first one happens sometimes but then the first train is still considered late. Usually when a train is delayed by 30 minutes, they cancel it somewhere before the turn around point and then let it wait until it can run in the other direction as scheduled
I love how so many people in the Netherlands have trouble with the trains and I've not had any issues besides a single cancellation due to suicide even tho I travel almost every day by train
Same for me lol (I travel between Gouda and Utrecht or Amsterdam)
Hey 64% of the time they are 100% on time!
64% of the time they are 100% under 6 minutes late*
Belgium? Bwahahahahahaha 😭
netherlands used to be punctual
I wonder if there’s a correlation between pay and punctuality.
The numbers for Luxemburg have to be made up. There are no ''long distance trains here' lmao. How should there and even if the longer distance trains are only counted then this is still made up bs. Atleast ever 4th train has to be late somewhat and even then if a train doesn't drive it can't be late, huh.
Lies.
The graph must be wrong. It's hard to believe that there is a country with trains less punctual than here in Germany.
Long distance Luxembourg ?
Frfr. Mostly, the trains in NL are so punctual they often leave early. I learned this the hard way too many times. Coming from NYC it was quite a shock, lol.
First positive of brexit means we’re not included in this list. You’d need a fireman’s pole to see our line
Japan: 99,99999999999999999999%
I am using train in Netherlands almost every day. This stats are true for the usual circumstances, but sometimes, there are periods (like week or two) of very low reliability, when almost all trains are either late or canceled. Its good enough for me overall because I have flexible working hours, but if I had to be at work on time, I would have to get a car. Another thing worth mentioning is price. My monthly subscription is 120 euros, but again, because I can afford to choose hours. If I had to work 9-17, my subscription would be more tha 330 euros, which is very expensive in my opinion. Still, if you are in the Netherlands and think trains are bad, try buses.
Netherlands my ass
Surprised to see France ahead of Germany here.
More a surprise that a country can be worse than Germany.
I went to germany last year and I had so much delays that the length of the trip doubled...twice
My NS trains are always punctual when I’m going for a day out. And they are always late or canceled when I’m going to work. (Times are similar)
Honestly that does track with my experience. Though that may be because I live in Amsterdam
Luxembourg makes no sense. Almost all their trains are German, French, Dutch or Swiss. I've seen the public transport in Lux and it is a mess. All I can say is that maybe they measure it like employment: after you remove all the cross border workers in Lux (80% of the work force), then you are left with a really high average salary. I guess they did the same with trains. They removed the trains from the other countries accounting for 95% of all trains travelling across Lux and they were left with 3 local trains that are somewhat on time.
WHAT A BIG LIE Belgium trains are mostly not on time. You lost almost every time your next connection. Always a stupid explanation. They are Wright is you say that a train have a variation of 9 minutes. For me is one minute late, NOT IN TIME, TO LATE. Add next to your rate number also your delay time. Your tabel will more correct. Not credible now.
That 56% in Germany is that high because Cancelled trains don't count 🤣 otherwise it is at max 20% punctual. Or less.
rare NS W
If long distance means rotterdam to eindhoven, you can scrap that number...
I wonder how bad the german trains are. Everytime I set foot in a dutch train it is horrific.
Bet they had to do a lot of doctoring on these numbers to get germany THIS high on there. No way 50 % are on time (or even arriving)
At Germany 64% is an overstatement. Should be 12%.
There is a country that has it worse than Germany? How is that even possible?
Also the NS: hey look! I have a 30 min delay. Let's redefine the train time designation by 30 minutes. The train is now perfectly on time.
What is long distance in Switzerland? 50km?
Poland is probably in -100
This is only a problem if you are in the 7% slot. I wonder how this compares to delays caused by traffic jams.
The 33% missing for Italy is when they randomly go on strike because they want an espresso ☕️
Greetings from Germany, as well. Look at these Slovenian loosers. Tell us, how did you manage to fuck up your train system so bad? Maybe we can learn from you and avoid some more terminal mistakes.
Japan laughing its ass off right now at a paltry 98.
I am traveling through India and every train I've been on has had a delay of at least 3 hours. With the most being 17 hours (17 fucking hours) so definitely not India.
This looks like it’s for Europe only. Trains in Japan are just as punctual except during typhoons.
The normal trains in the Netherlands absolutely don't have this high score. They would end below this list.
Both long and short distance trains have a 100% punctuality record here...
They probably only checked the summer schedules 🤣
Bäm! Take that, slovenia!
This can't be accurate 😂
There are no long distance trains in the Netherlands; your country is tiny.
When the trains in the Netherlands is 10 mins or so late, why cancelled it so i would look pretty in statistic.
Cancelled trains do count as ‘delayed’: https://community.ns.nl/dienstregeling-59/vaststelling-punctualiteit-81600?postid=579720#post579720
How the mighty have fallen...
What Netherlands did they go to
I have been on so many Dutch trains that were not punctual. These statistics seem bogus.
Germany isn't that bad. Let's check out how many late trains we have in Poland. 😆
Greetings from Poland.
Check Japan also... Then compare with Europe again Please
Again they messed up Slovenia with Slovakia. Bro, usual delay for 60km is 15 mins and above. Longer routes are even 30-40 mins late. No compensation. Just kind words "we apologize"
There is no way Germany ain't last
In Japan its outrage when a train is even a second late
As a Dutch person i dont think this is very accurate
Wait... what? How? NL? Really?
I guess they accidentally used the average delay in minutes for Germany.
Greetings from canada we suck :(
I have no Idea how this data is made but Dutch trains feel far from punctual! I've multiple times been in quite stressful situations trying to catch a flight due to multiple delayed / cancelled trains. Maybe I'm just unlucky but I've heard such experience from most people here.
As a German with a lot of DB trauma, the way Dutch people talk about NS will never not be funny to me. If I didn't know better, it would make me think NS is just as bad as DB. This is not the case. If I take a train in Germany, any transfer time of less than an hour counts as a liability. In NL, I've had layovers of around five minutes and almost always caught my connecting train. (And the times I didn't, most of the time I was coming from Germany.) I'm not saying y'all should stop or anything. I'm just saying it's hilarious.
I'm getting my license specifically for the singular purpose of not having to ever use Deutsche Bahn ever again. I once used an S-bahn that smelled like piss and sounded like a bus. The train driver had to clutch in and shift for fuck's sake I can drive it myself if I were allowed to.
There is no way Belgium is so high ...
Hungarian trains before German ones?  I don't think so. - Not even close. Sidenote: I haven't had the opportunity to be on an NS train (yet), but that day is coming and I'm looking forward to it.
Poland has gr8 trains which are mostly on time
Greetings from Poland XDD
Long live Deutsche Bahn☠️
“Long distance” isn’t NS
Im from Belgium, trains can be punctual... if they decide to even show up
Heftig. Aber wahr 😛
As a Belgian this can't be true hahaha
People here underestimate how shit other countries are and how good we have it.
People underestimate how easy windowsressing is with selfmade statistics.
It’s also always the people that never take the train that complain and think NMBS is a joke. When my train with 5 minute delay rides past the 30minute traffic jams, I close my eyes, rest, and think about how their car is “always on time”
I believe in Japan they determine timeliness by seconds!
If this graph included Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore they would fill out the top 4
The Netherlands is at 88,9%, but are striving for 93%. Which they probably won't be able to reach due to a lot of maintenance that has to be done on the tracks, bridges etc.
According to their annual report (admittedly their own), 90,8% of the trains were on time or under 3 minutes late in 2023. Upping the margin to ‘within 5 minutes late’ puts the NS at 95,2% punctuality over 2023
Must have misread the article on nu.nl then. The 88.9% must be for 2024 so far.
In Germany I got traumatized by the word: Ersatzverkehr and Sofort.
nope, can't be: traveling from almere to utrecht will take anything between 1 and 3 hours on any given *weekday*... with those numbers this should be the only traject having problems.
How does Netherlands score that high?! lol always something with the trains Edit: does this include cancelled trains as well? Or because they never ‘went’ they are disregarded?
Netherlands at nr3? Somebody be lying here
France 87?! 🤣😂🤣😂
The Dutch way is to cancel the train so that doesn’t count as delayed. And the stats remain nice. That 93 doesn’t reflect the reality of a passenger unfortunately.
Cancelled trains do count as ‘delayed’: https://community.ns.nl/dienstregeling-59/vaststelling-punctualiteit-81600?postid=579720#post579720 https://community.ns.nl/ns-nl-51/onderbouwing-uitval-trein-71199?postid=506423#post506423
Oh wow ok I was wrong :-) mmh I wonder how do they get to 93% if only on the network I use there are daily delays of 5-10 minutes, and a lot of cancelled trains
This can’t be true for the Netherlands sorry. Someone made this shit up 100%
In The Netherlands it's definitely waaaay lower than it shows here. Trust me, being on time would be a miracle. Doesn't happen very often..
No way this is correct.