User-friendly travel information

NS wants to give passengers more control over their door-to-door journey and more freedom of choice, irrespective of the means of transport or the carrier. High-quality travel information plays a key role in this, especially when an unexpected event, such as a disruption or withdrawal, changes the scheduled course of the journey. Travel information has to be correct and up to date, so that passengers can make better choices both before and during their journey. Every year, NS sends millions of travel advice messages about rail travel, works on the tracks and disruptions. ‘User-friendly travel information’ is a performance indicator we use to show the extent to which passengers have been provided with correct and timely information about platform changes, delays and train cancellations, and whether they received timely advice on alternative routes in the case of serious delays. In 2022, the score for this indicator was 81.7% (2021: 79.9%).

In May we adapted the journey information display at our stations. They now also show how long the trains are and in which direction they will be travelling. This helps passengers find out where along the platform the train will stop, which speeds up the boarding process. In addition, the displays also indicate the number of minutes left before departure. Passengers can now see at a glance whether they need to hurry to catch their train. We have also enhanced the method we use to predict the extent of delay in the arrival of a train. This has further improved the accuracy of delay forecasts on the information displays. Scheduled adaptations to the timetable have improved our performance on the KPI for ‘User-friendly travel information’.