Trip chains represent an analytical tool to understand public transport service networks from the eyes of the traveller. The idea of trip chains has been used in different ways in the Netherlands over the last 25 years. Before the 1980's the concept was used mostly to improve the interconnection of the different types of services one company, especially Dutch Rail, was offering. In the early 1980's the concept was used by the central government to reduce the number of parallel running regional bus and train services. In the late 1980's again the emphasis changed to restructuring the regional public transport network, to reduce mounting costs. What will be the role of the concept of trip chains in the coming years? Will fears that the introduction of competition in Dutch public transport will reduce the high level of interconnection materialise? Will decentralisation of responsibilities from central government reduce the quality of interconnection in the Netherlands, given the fact that central government played a major role in interconnection in the last decades? This paper tries to asses possible new roles of chain-based analysis and how this can contribute to the improvement of the quality of Dutch public transport. (A)
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