City buses in Amsterdam, The Hague and Rotterdam could be put out to public tender but tram and metro services should remain in council hands, the chairman of public transport lobby group Rover says in Monday’s Telegraaf.

Arriën Kruyt said that experience in the Netherlands and abroad shows that contracting out services ‘can deliver many advantages for passengers, such as better services.’
But contracting out rail services is problematic because of the ownership issue, he said. And he called for contracts to cover larger areas to make sure services and information does not become fragmented.
Public transport workers in the three cities are opposed to the contracting process, which the government is determined to push through, and have been on strike several times.