page_title: Nederlandse Spoorwegen
section_title: Reforms period (1980s–2000s)
hierarchical_section_title: Nederlandse Spoorwegen / History / Reforms period (1980s–2000s)
caption_attribution_description: Nederlands: Hoofdkantoor van de Nederlandse Spoorwegen in het Stationsgebied Utrecht, gezien vanaf de Catharijnebaan Camera location52°&#160;05′&#160;19.97″&#160;N, 5°&#160;06′&#160;55.74″&#160;E&#160;View this and other nearby images on: OpenStreetMap - Google Earth
context_page_description: Nederlandse Spoorwegen is a Dutch state-owned company, the principal passenger railway operator in the Netherlands. Founded in 1938, NS provides rail services on the Dutch main rail network. The Dutch rail network is the busiest in the European Union, and third busiest in the world after Switzerland and Japan.
  The rail infrastructure is maintained by network manager ProRail, which was split off from NS in 2003. Freight services, formerly operated by NS Cargo, merged with DB Schenker in 2000. NS runs 4,800 scheduled domestic trains a day, serving 1.1 million passengers. Also, NS provides international rail services from the Netherlands to other European destinations and carries out concessions on some foreign rail markets through its subsidiary Abellio.
context_section_description: In the early 1990s, the Government of the Netherlands started to question the subsidies given to the NS. Not only were there questions regarding the way the NS spent the subsidies, but, after the neoliberal reforms of the 1980s, it was also considered not done to award generic subsidies to companies. The authorities decided on the verzelfstandiging (corporatisation) of the NS although technically, this is not the case, but instead refers here to withdrawal of the subsidies. The idea was that not only rail transport was economically viable, but that there could be competition as well.
  There were two external circumstances which allowed for this to happen. Firstly, the European Union passed Directive 91/440, which prescribed, among other things, the formal separation of the national railways into two separate companies, one which deals with the infrastructure, and the other which deals with the transport activities. Secondly, the old CEO of the NS, Leo Ploeger, retired, which allowed the authorities to name a new CEO which would execute the government's plans. The new CEO was Rob den Besten. The plans entailed that the Government of the Netherlands would remain responsible for the rail infrastructure, while the NS would provide the passenger transport on a commercial basis. Where the services would prove to be economically inviable, the government would subsidise that route. The division which was responsible for the infrastructure would later be turned into NS Railinfratrust.
  To facilitate government plans for the company's commercial operation, Den Besten planned to split the NS into many smaller independent divisions. The idea was that these smaller divisions would be better able to respond to the market. The plans, however, received massive opposition from the unions, which meant that the only divisions created were NS Reizigers, and locomotive maintenance company NedTrain. There were also other internal changes in the company. The route managers got de facto control over the operation, but they were dependent of a different organ in the company.
  The freight sector NS Cargo became part of Deutsche Bahn after its merger with Railion in 2000 (later into DB Cargo). These reforms were never much of a success and left the company in an uncontrollable state. The result was that the company started to decline rapidly, and that the employees started many unorganised strikes. Following this, the complete board of directors felt it necessary to resign in late 2001.
  In 2002 Karel Noordzij was named as new CEO of the NS with the mission to restore the confidence in the company. In essence, he did this by reversing most the reforms of the late 1990s and restoring the company to the old state. Meanwhile, the government had changed its opinion of the railways, it no longer considered competition on (passenger) transport a viable goal. Thus, the government started to commission railway operators to run routes on the network. The NS was granted (by the national government) the concession to run on the main lines, whereas other companies received a number of the concessions on the secondary lines. The goal is to give individual concessions for the individual lines, but (at least) until 2025 the NS holds the concessions for main lines.
caption: Current headquarters in Utrecht
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