The mission statement of the Dutch Railway company (NS) is to attract more and more satisfied passengers. To achieve this NS has to consider two important trends that are going to take place in the years to come. The first one is the individualisation of society, which causes a change in the demands of clients. The new train product has to satisfy these demands. The second trend is a geographical expansion in the Netherlands, as a result of which the average travel distance will become larger. This also has to be taken into account in the development of the new train product. To deal with these trends NS has developed a three-train system connecting to the geographical expansion, with three levels of comfort connecting to the individual wishes of customers, that can vary by customer or the kind of trip the customer is making. By meeting the customers wishes in an optimal way, NS can achieve a growth of passenger kilometres of 50% to 60% between 2000 and 2010. This growth will especially take place between the cities in the Randstad, and in the long distance market between the Randstad and the rest of the Netherlands. (A) For related work see ITRD E206649 and E206696. For the covering abstract of the conference see ITRD E206647.
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