The Dutch railroad company NS is going to remove first class in about half of all Sprinter trains to create additional second-class seats. A total of 3,580 additional second-class seats would be involved.
According to NS, first class in the sprinter, a train for short travel distances used for stopping services, is only about 10% occupied during rush hour, and second-class passengers must stand at such busy times. Belgian railroads currently have no plans in this direction.
Impact of teleworking
Still, according to NS, travel behavior has changed after the COVID-19 pandemic. Travelers are using first class less in sprinters, partly because they take the train less, as they work from home. It is a different story in intercity trains, which travel longer routes; first class is well used there, according to the NS.
In addition, this year the government has imposed a quota on the NS regarding the number of seats available during rush hour. At least 94,1% of passengers must be able to sit during the entire journey.
Moreover, on some regional lines in the Netherlands, such as those run by Arriva and Qbuzz, first class is also no longer present, so that more people can get on the train.
NS also says that after the conversion, there will still be enough seats for first-class travelers. NS expects to have converted the 190 sprinters by the summer of 2026.
Added value
Both NS and the Dutch travelers’ organization Rover are against abolishing first or second class. For example, some people cannot cope well with stimuli and need a quieter train, and it is also feared that a large group of travelers would switch to the first-class car if it were to disappear altogether. More and more companies also consider travel time as working time, and first class is, therefore, an extremely convenient place to open your laptop and work.
Peter Meukens, president of the Belgian travelers’ organization TreinTramBus, also makes the added value of being able to combine travel with work a decisive argument for not abolishing first class. “If you want to get people out of their cars, then first class remains an important asset,” Meukens said on vrt.be.
“No established policy at NMBS/SCNB”
Yet Meukens points out that there is no established policy in Belgium at NMBS/SCNB. “Switzerland has 26 to 30% first-class seats, the Netherlands 20%. In Belgium, it’s 8 to 21%, highly dependent on train to train.”
According to Meukens, declassifying and making a first-class car available to second-class passengers in crowded conditions has also become too complicated. Anyone who regularly takes the train at busy times has probably been annoyed that it is hard to find a seat in second class while there are many empty seats in first class.
“Actually, the point is that NMBS/SNCB should make sure the trains are long enough”, dixit Meukens, “but this is not always the case. If you must squeeze people for nine carriages into 3, you get problems.”
2,5% of NMBS/SNCB passengers travel 1st class
To be clear, you may only sit in first class if you have a valid and, therefore, slightly more expensive ticket for it, even if there are no more seats on the rest of the train.
A response to a parliamentary question showed that in 2022, about one in 40 train passengers at NMBS/SNCB, or about 2,5% of all passengers, would opt for a seat in first class. That would generate an added value of some 35,1 million euros for the railroad company that year.
