NS wants to give passengers more control over their door-to-door journey, irrespective of the means of transport or the carrier. Journey information plays a key role in this. This information has to be correct, frequent, in time, consistent and up-to-date so that passengers can make better choices. Every year, NS issues more than 500 million journey recommendations about door-to-door travel, engineering work and disruptions. In 2018, we gave timely information about disruptions on the train and at the station in 85% of the cases. That percentage was higher than in 2017 (83%). More use of automatic announcements at the station resulted in more timely, clearer and more consistent journey information during disruptions. The centralisation of the teams for the operation of signs and announcements at the station resulted in a clear working method and higher quality. Based on information by ProRail about adjustments to the timetable, we give the passengers a forecast of how long the disruption is expected to last.
The latest departure times of buses, trams and the metro on screens in the public transport service centres at the station were improved this year with regard to contents and display, facilitating better connections to other modes of transport. NS staff can provide door-to-door travel advice with the NS app, including about other train and bus companies. The contract for the replacement bus service was also renewed at the end of 2018. The new contract now includes tracking the buses in real-time, which makes it possible to provide up-to-date journey information.

NS app improvements

In 2018 NS further developed the information in the NS app. Based on their personal preferences, passengers receive alerts about their route before and during the journey. The NS journey planner provides up-to-date advice on public transport journeys, covering the bus, tram and metro in addition to the train journey from station to station. The app does not yet give rail passengers alternative travel options when there are disruptions. We want to remedy this in 2019.

Journey information during the train journey

• * For 2018, this indicator was changed due to technical adjustments to the calculations and a change in the reference point; see explanation

The ‘Journey information during the train journey’ performance indicator states whether the journey information provided five minutes before the actual departure of the train was correct in cases of delayed departure or a platform change. Performance in 2018 (85.0%) was better than in 2017 (84.7%). In the past year, NS has made timely announcements of platform changes and delays a key variable in the management information for train service leaders. The journey information analysts were also trained to give speedier and more timely warnings.