Travel organisation Rover has voiced criticism of Eindhoven’s public transport plans. According to the advocacy group, capacity issues on the railways are set to become even more severe shortly.
For instance, space has been requested for additional intercity services between Eindhoven and Amsterdam, but this may come at the expense of local Sprinter trains towards Boxtel. Due to economic growth, Rover also anticipates a rise in international trains to and from Eindhoven – an aspiration that the Eindhoven city council itself shares.
Expansion Required
However, to ensure there is sufficient capacity on the Eindhoven railway network, additional infrastructure will be necessary. Alongside the two extra platforms already planned, a further one or two platforms would need to be constructed.
These extra platforms are also deemed essential because the overall increase in public transport passengers travelling to Eindhoven could turn out to be significantly higher than current forecasts suggest. This is partly due to the expected substantial growth in the number of homes in the city centre. “Especially if the quality of public transport improves,” Rover argues.
Extra Intercity Trains
Eindhoven would do well to prepare for a significant increase in the number of train services. There should be at least four Sprinter trains per hour within the Brabant City Region. Additionally, four intercity trains should run: two towards Nijmegen and two towards Utrecht — one via a direct route and the other via Tilburg and Breda.
Furthermore, there should be two intercity services per hour to Maastricht and two international trains per hour to Düsseldorf (via Eindhoven to Antwerp).
Rover also emphasises the importance of designing the new underground bus station with greater capacity from the outset. Once constructed, the station will not be able to expand. “The current promising design options are simply not sufficient,” the organisation warns.
Untenable
“We are shocked that the construction of additional platform tracks is not scheduled until after 2040,” Rover continued. “This means that trains for which there is already transport demand today would be unable to operate for more than fifteen years. This is simply untenable.”
Rover argues that both the national government and the regional authorities must provide additional funding to improve the region’s accessibility. The solutions proposed by the organisation would require hundreds of millions of euros in extra investment — but, it insists, the cost is justified.
National Importance
“Eindhoven Centraal is the key hub for accessibility across the entire southern Netherlands. It is also a vital node for the development of international rail transport to and from the country. If we want to sustain the high-tech sector in the Netherlands, public transport accessibility must be at its best,” Rover states.
“There are already significant capacity bottlenecks. The Eindhoven Centraal project is not about addressing problems of the future, but about resolving an issue of national importance — one that frankly should have been tackled long ago.”
Source: Studio040
For Eindhoven News: Chaitali Sengupta.
