The government and local authorities have agreed to invest €350m overhauling Amsterdam’s central station and Zuid, the station in the Zuidas business district.

The money will be spent on boosting capacity so the stations can cope with far more travellers by 2030, junior transport minister Stientje van Veldhoven has announced.

The plans include boosting the number of trains leaving Amsterdam CS from 34 to 57 an hour. The Alkmaar, Arnhem, Utrecht and Nijmegen routes will then have one train every 10minutes, the minister said.

She has also decided to back a plan which will cut the number of platforms at CS from 15 to nine, despite criticism.

International trains will then terminate at Amsterdam Zuid station, where capacity is being expanded from five to six platforms.

Zuid will then be developed into an ‘international hub’ with fast connections to Schiphol airport as well. Travellers will then be able to take the metro to the centre of town. This ‘fits the international character of Zuidas,’ the minister said.

Van Veldhoven has partly based her decision on forecasts which say some 500,000 people will move to the central urban Randstad area within the next 10 years.

Station Zuid is already being overhauled as part of the massive Zuidasdok project, which involves putting part of the A10 ring road underground and that project includes expanding the number of platforms to six.

Amsterdam CS has only recently completed a major overhaul, with new underground passageways, a road tunnel and a new bus station.