Last year the image of rail travel deteriorated considerably. The Dutch Railway Company (NS) often hit the headlines with news of delays or of trains failing to run altogether. All of this was fuelled by political discussion, an important source of information in such debates being the punctuality of trains which was clearly below par. The expectations were that the delays for passengers would only escalate. Indeed, it is 50 that the differentiation between full and less full trains does not properly emerge from the punctuality figures which means that insight into the unpunctuality of passengers as opposed to the unpunctuality of trains is lacking. Due to the increase in the number of delays there is a demand for more insight into the social costs of train delays. In one respect this needs to be done to establish the seriousness of train delays for "the limited company The Netherlands" and in another respect it is necessary for the balanced making of investments in rail infrastructure. Railned has examined both the consequences of delays for passengers and the social costs of rail travel delays. (Author/publisher)
Abstract