The NS wants more powers to combat aggression on trains because incidents involving physical or verbal violence increased by 30% in 2022, the train operator has said.

Last year some 965 incidents of aggressive behaviour by train travellers were reported, up over 200 in 2021. Most of the reports concerned threatening behaviour or physical attacks on staff. Violent incidents between train travellers also increased.

The NS said that most aggressive behaviour occurs when travellers are asked to respect the rules or show their ticket.

The NS, which transports hundreds of thousands of people a day, said the increase is ‘unacceptable’ and wants the government to allow NS security staff to carry out identity checks, ‘to help police, avoid escalation and make people answer for their behaviour’.

The increase in violence is not simply a matter of there being more post pandemic travellers, an NS spokesman said. ‘During and after the pandemic we saw and are still seeing more verbally abusive and short-tempered people,’ he said. ‘We are confronted more often by people who are caught out without a ticket and then become physically violent.’

Wouter Koolmees, who took over the top job at NS just three months ago, said the figures had ‘shocked’ him. ‘Society is becoming rougher and that is increasingly leading to aggression towards my colleagues, but also the police and other services,’ he said.

Action

The NS is already taking action to combat aggressive travellers. In July it introduced live streaming on trains on some routes, which will be extended to all trains in the near future.

At some stations ad hoc measures have been taken,  such as closing down entry gates at trouble spots and even deploying security staff with dogs at Weert, Rotterdam and Amsterdam stations. In 2020 NS also made it easier to directly report incidents using Whatsapp Alert.

Koolmees said the effects of the train operator’s measures would be evaluated next year but that ‘government help is necessary’. ‘As a public transport service we cannot tackle this on our own,’ he said.