NS versus NMBS

7/30/2019 NS versus NMBS

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NS versus NMBS: A personal and statistical drama

The Green Cow

The story that made the highlights

People living in Belgium or The Netherlands had a real thrilling soap to

follow last winter: the tragic story of the Fyra. The Fyra was supposed tobring people in no time from Amsterdam to Brussels (and the other wayround, off course). A new fancy train (the V250) was used for this project.From the very first day the trains had a lot of technical problems. One ofthe problems was that it was not guaranteed they could pass the borderbetween Belgium and The Netherlands. At that point the train had to gofrom one power net to another and, at the same time, had to change fromone security system to another. Apparently, this was to much of a changefor this young train and it tended to stop at the crossing of the border.

An other problem was the cold winter. The amount of snow was excep-tionally in the winter and spring of 2013. This poor trains where used to the

nice and warm climate of their country of origin, Italy, and could not standthe snow and ice. The moment they started to lose parts of their body,the Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS, Dutch Railway Company) and NationaleMaatschappij voor Belgische Spoorwegen (NMBS, Belgian National Rail-way Company) decided to take the new trains temporarily from the trackstill the problems were solved. A few months later this decision became adefinitive one, as there did not seem to be a solution for the problem.

Besides from the these problems, the Fyra project did not seem to bepopular, as the prices were a lot higher than they used to be. (I payed threetimes more compared to the old slower option the only time I took one of theV250 trains.) And it was not pleasant at all to be in a noisy, bumpy train

that sounded at some places as if it wanted to leave the tracks never to comeback. (Not to speak from the sloppy test drives. Up to 3000km accordingto one source, which is not very impressive if you realize that Brussels arearound 200km apart and they thus did not even go ten times the distanceback and forth between the two cities.)

The story that did not make the highlights

The story of the Fyra is well-known in both countries, both by people thatuse the train regularly and by those that rarely travel by train. However,

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there are stories that do not make it to the highlights. Stories that are only

known to people that travel regularly with the trains of both NS and NMBS.People (or animals ) like me. I am not just talking about delays whichare that frequent that one gets used to it. I am talking mostly about all thecanceled trains, all the times you get dumped in a station without a cluehow to get home, the unfriendly and unhelpfully people you have to dealwith if you want some information, et cetera.

Not so long ago I was dumped by the NS two times within 8 days andno one could or wanted to provide me with information how to get home.The first time I had to wait for almost three hours on a station over fortykilometers away from home and there was not a single possibility to gethome. Except for waiting, till they repaired their signal (which was broken,

causing the whole situation). Further, the lady at the information desk couldnot think of anything other to say than that it was not her fault. Note thatairlines are obligated to provide you with food and drinks if you are delayedfor more than two hours, but that railway companies have no obligationslike this at all. I told my story on the Facebook account of the NS and gota very irritating response back, saying that they try most of the times toprovide an alternative and that they hoped my next experience with themwould be better.

Which was not the case: within eight days I was dumped again by theNS. This time it was due to a suicide on the tracks. I admit that they can notreally help it in such a case. The stupid thing was that I could not go further

than Rotterdam Central Station while I wanted to go to Delft Station. Forthose not familiar with the geography of The Netherlands: Delft is abouthalfway between Rotterdam Central Station and The Hague Central Station.The suicide happened between Delft Station and The Hague Central Station.(That information was provided by the NS.) However, there were also notrains from Rotterdam Central Station to Delft. Why was never explainedand they also did not give you a clue on how to go from Rotterdam to Delft.In the end I figured out how to do it: I had to make a detour trough Goudaand The Hague (sic) and then go by tram. A journey that took almosttwo hours for a distance you can do in 15 minutes if everything is going asplanned.

I could go on with stories like these for hours. I traveled a lot with boththe NMBS and the NS over the past two to three years which provided mewith enough stories of failures to fill a complete book. However the twostories I told here made me wonder who is worse: the NS or the NMBS.My personal answer is, that it depends on what you find worse. The NMBSseems to be worse in terms of pure delays. Which will get to your nervesquickly if you have to commute. The NS seems to be worse in terms ofcanceled trains. Including trains canceled due to work on the tracks, whichhappens almost every weekend. (In that case they sometimes use buses tobias the tracks where the works are, but you will always need at least half

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an hour extra.)

The statistical story

Unfortunately, data on the performance of both the NS and the NMBS aredifficult to get. I found only some data of the last few years. 1 Thesedata show a few interesting things. Table 1 shows the percentage of trainsthat was on time from 2000 till 2010. The main percentage of trains thatwhere on time was 91.5 (SD 1.66) for the NS and 90.6 (2.21) for the NMBS.This difference was not statistically significant, which means that it is mostprobably due to coincidence. 2 However, if you look at the trend over theyears, you can see an interesting difference between both railway companies.

The average percentage of trains that is on time is increasing with 0.47% peryear in the NS. 3 For the NMBS this percentage is decreasing with 0.49%per year. 4. This means that the NS seems to be improving its punctuality.On the contrary, the punctuality of the NMBS seems to be getting worseand worse. 5

Another interesting number to see is the percentage of canceled trainsfor each year. I didnt find much data about trains canceled by the NMBS.For 2009 and 2010 the data are in table 2. The mean percentage of canceledtrains was 2.2 for the NS and 1.7 for the NMBS. This difference was notstatistically significant, which is due to the fact that I had only data for twoyears.

In conclusion, my personal impressions seems to be in accordance withthe data: the NMBS has more delays while the NS is canceling more trains.Qoud erat demonstrandum.

1A longer and intenser search for data will no doubt reveal more than I found. However,I do write this blog as an unpaid hobby, so I dont have the time and resources requiredfor a stringent analysis.

2P=0.29, two sample T-Test with unequal variances.3Linear regression (in R) of the percentage on year, P=0.0014Linear regression (in R) of the percentage on year, P=0.0105This results can be biased by the fact that the trains that where canceled are not

included in the figures on delayed trains.

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NS NMBS Year

NA 90.7 200088.2 91.2 200189.3 92.6 200290.5 92.6 200392.3 93.2 2004

91.8 91.9 200591.8 90.6 200693 89.2 200793 90.2 200892.8 88.2 200992.5 85.7 2010

Table 1: Percentage of trains that where on time for NS and NMBS

NS NMBS Year

2.2 1.9 20102.0 1.7 2009

Table 2: Percentage of canceled trains for NS and NMBS

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NS versus NMBS