Belgian rail company hopes to increase the number of train services by 5%
Belgium’s state-own rail opperator NMBS hopes to increase the number of domestic rail services by 5% over the next three year. The decission to up the number of rail services was taken at a meeting of NMBS’ board. The increase is one of the measures that will form part of the rail operator’s 2020 – 2023 management plan that will come into effect at the end of next year. Like the rest of the management plan, the plan to increase the number of rail services is subject to the green light being given by the Federal Department of Transport.
The extra services would become opperational in three phases: one each in December of 2020, 2021 and 2022. This will be done taking into account the availability of extra infrastucture and rolling stock.
The NMBS’ spokesman Dimitri Temmerman told journalists that the aim is to improve and introduce new inter-city services between towns and cities as well as improving suburban services. NMBS als aims to improve services to and from medium-sized towns and citie, as well as increasing the number of early morning and late evening services.
The Board’s ideas will now be put before the Transport Department. NMBS intends to order the additional track capacity from the rail infrastructure management company Infrabel in April of next years. Until then it will not go into any details about what additional services will be launched and when.