This has happened on a larger scale in England. The results? Much higher fares, less trains, poor service and a confusing number of ticket types. The government should be running all public transport for the taxpayers. not letting private companies make millions for their shareholders at the cost of the travelers. Transport should be a SERVICE to the public, not a vehicle for fat cats to get even richer.

I totally agree with Martyn. Private companies are out to make as much profit as possible, and the consumer in this case would suffer.

Same old story, pass the brown envelope?

Im with Martyn - The Dutch Railway is one of the things I like best in Holland - Keep it Nationalised or end up like the UK with a poor more expensive, crowded service. A lot of people ended up very very rich in the UK with the privitising of the railway and then the subsequent selling off of the rolling stock and more profitable routes to ever cheaper operators much to the detriment of the poor unfortunate passengers. Leave it alone its a fantastic system as it is.

The only thing that gets easier when such a service is torn apart between "competitors" is that it becomes easier to hide responsibility by blaming the others, when accidents or problems happen.
I strongly believe that the railways need to have a single owner, it doesn't matter if it is state or private.

I love travelling by train in The Netherlands. Martyn has already pointed out the problems with rail privatisation in the UK, so all I am going to say is...leave the rail network alone, "competition" is not the answer.

Martyn is right.
The Conservative government in UK sold off many public assets in the 70s & 80s.
All these went at knock down prices to their financial backers & friends in the city.
PS the city is a UK term which refers to the bankers/stock market & other financial institutions in London. Also called 'the square mile'.

Always a good sign, when they start selling the farm!!

Martyn. I agree 100%. Britians rail network os a complete shambles. The whole infrastructure is crumbling, leading to a third world status public service, where all profits are paid to the directors and shareholders of the company, not used, to better the service. Greed, Greed, Greed are the terms used.

Private companies have to increase shareholder value. Transportation has fixed overhead costs. Thus, to increase profit, they have increase prices or reduce services, period. This is true of trains, buses, subways, urban light rails, and airlines. Why would it be any different this time around?

While the government bails out the banks and provide subsidy for the bonus of executives, they cut the most basic spending for the public transportation. The average person in the street puts the blame on the allachtonen. The main reason for the cuts is the choice of the politicians, all over the world, that is more for the rich, less for the society.

You call this giving us better service????? A while back you mentioned that the Dutch wanted better the public transport system not make it worse and more costly

You call this giving us better service????? A while back you mentioned that the Dutch wanted better the public transport system not make it worse and more costly

The problems faced by the Dutch railways will not be solved by pulling it apart. As Martyn rightly states, the British experience should stand as a warning to anyone imagining that privatisation is anything but a placebo.

Making the system even less customer friendly will do nothing. It would be a better move to bring all rail passenger services under one company again.

I will remind you that NS would be more profitable if it still transported goods. That, after all, is where the profits are.

Public transport in the Netherlands (when it works) is beautiful! Why would anyone want to fiddle with a recipe that's good?? Maybe the government's efforts should be on how to boost growth and not on how to favour select private conglomerates.

Whichever way, somebody needs to fix the train mess. Delays, storings and cancellations are now a daily event.

I couldn't agree more with the above comment, public transport in the UK is a shambles, why follow a failed policy like this?

@Martyn: the OV-chipkaart will remain in place for all public transportation.

It is only a sub-contracting operating

I hate the idea of public employees running directly trains or buses. Government should plan the network but subcontract anything else.

I SECOND THE COMMENT BY MARTYN.
Frequently, when travwlling cross country with changes at one or more stations to trains run by different train operating companies I find it is quicker and more comfortable to go by car.

This will be a mistake that will take years to put right, I work in the rail industry in the UK and report after report reveals the enormous cost of rail privatisation, giving little benefit to rail users. I have travelled on the rail network in Holland and I think it is a good system, break it up at your peril.

Well said, Martyn.

Privateers shld run the station franchises, be able to purchase advertising, but otherwise get nowhere near the precious lines and rolling stock.

(And of course state employees should be subject to censure if they fail to run a reliable service.)

It's easy to say of course but not easy to do. I salute the government ministers charged with making such decisions. Perhaps you need a formula that means the lines that by their location/no. of passengers make less money are subsidised in some way by the lines that make more.

PS: I've got used to English slow trains by now - I just take some work and a pair of over-ear headphones.

Someone must be taking kickbacks. Both the infrastructure /and/ the service of public transport are a public good, particularly in a densely populated country such as NL. As the UK experience shows, introducing artificial "competition" into such a public service will merely pump Dutch taxpayers' money into the pockets of the managers of private companies (shareholders don't get much of look-in these days) in return for an inferior service. The private companies will then pull out of the business once the cash cow has been milked dry, just as they do in the UK, leaving Dutch taxpayers to pay a second time in order to restore the necessary service.

It's corporate welfare.

@Martyn. Exactly!

Why does everything has to be privatized? Public transport is a SERVICE, there is enough money to make out there in other businesses...

You think the NS is bad now?
When it's privatised you will be begging to have NS back.
Anywhere around the world where public transport has been privatized, its turned into a disaster! Fares are expensive, routes are slashed, timetables slashed. In turn, it leads to a lot more cars on the roads because people start to drive instead of taking public transport.

Everything, as written by Martyn "klopt"!
Only in my case I refer to Melbourne, Australia.
There is no better way of making an ill-run service (nb OWNED BY THE TAX PAYER!)even sicker, than by selling it to private investors!

I totally agree with Martyn, the Minister in charge should visit Switzerland and get some Inspiration which is highly needed I think. Every time we have guests from The Netherland, they are highly astonished how good Public Transport works here. Instead of spending millions for this check-in/check out stuff they could have set up the whole thing in the Web where you can print tickets or have them sent to your smart phones using QR Codes.Whenever I am in the Netherlands (and that is quite often) married to a Dutch I am encountering problems with the NS. I do hope the Dutch people stand up and tell the NS Management what their real needs are.

What is the purpose of giving Zwolle - Gronignen to private company? At the moment there are three trains in an hour between the cities, all operated by NS. One regional and two inter-cities. If the regional goes to be privatised it will not affect the frequency perhaps but mostly the price, and confuse passengers how exactly to get their ticket! Not to mention that this rail track has at least one suicide weekly!

People are ignoring the facts.

The routes will keep being centrally planned.

OV-Chipkaart will keep being used nationwide.

"Private" trains and buses already run in many areas (Syntus, Arriva, Veolia, Connexion) of the country.

Price will also not change from the national policy. It will remains the same, and it will be paid with OV-Chipkaart.

ProRail and HSA are already private entities.

Yes, and they are reconsidering the benefits of a private entity like ProRail, Andre. For good reason.