Wooden planks and a glass front in a world of sand. Construction of the new Strand metro station in Hoek van Holland is progressing steadily† Sometime this summer – the date is not yet known – the last station of the Hoekse Lijn will open. And then you drive in 35 minutes from the heart of Rotterdam to the beach of Hoek. Years later than expected, tens of millions more expensive than planned.
But for the Rotterdam public transport company RET, 2022 will not only be the year of the long-awaited completion of the Hoekse Lijn. It will also be a year of austerity, just like 2021. The financial problems caused by the corona pandemic are not over yet, and government support may be lost.
“A bitter wind is blowing through the company,” says director Maurice Unck after listing all the cutbacks. No pay raises, no drinks, no Christmas hampers. But also: 5 percent fewer buses, trams and metros, especially during rush hours, and no more conductors on two tram lines. The RET will soon cut fifty jobs (out of more than three thousand) of service employees who, among other things, supervise the metro. The latter point affects the safety of public transport. “And that is very unwise for the city of Rotterdam,” says Unck.
Extremely painful measures, but there was little else to do, says the RET director. Due to the corona crisis, the company transported far fewer travelers. “In the first corona year, we decided to take the loss,” says Unck. “In 2020 we achieved a negative result of more than 11 million euros. We couldn’t do that for another year. We scraped everything together and saved 15 million. We managed to keep the steering wheel quite straight, but we had to work hard for that. We went from an acute crisis in 2020 to a financial crisis in 2021.”
Availability allowance
The RET presented Thursday the figures for 2021† The transport company closed with a plus of 1.2 million euros. Due to incidental benefits, Unck says. The result from ordinary activities was a loss of 1 million euros. Before the pandemic, the RET made a profit of 4 to 6 million euros per year.
Also read: Lean corona support postpones depletion of public transport until 2023
Without government support, the numbers would have been even worse. Like the other public transport companies in the Netherlands, the Rotterdam city transport company received a subsidy to maintain the timetable for the most part. In this way, every Rotterdammer who was dependent on bus, tram and metro could still travel. In 2021, the RET received 70.1 million euros in availability fee. In 2020 that was 71.2 million. The government will reimburse a maximum of 93 percent of the costs; the rest must be coughed up by the public transport companies themselves.
“We currently transport 75 to 80 percent of the number of travelers in 2019,” says Unck. “That 20 to 25 percent fewer travelers saves us 30 to 35 million a year in income. We still need support – even after this year.”
Whether it will come is uncertain. The Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management reported last week that the availability fee will be extended for four months, until the end of 2022. The public transport support is the only corona package that is still ongoing. But the question is whether the carriers will still receive support in 2023 and later. The sector fears that this was the last compensation; the ministry does not want to say anything about it yet.
Climate transition
“While we are happy with the support for 2022, it continues to navigate in extremely uncertain circumstances,” said Unck. “In the coming years, the cabinet will be faced with major tasks for which public transport is indispensable. Take housing construction: 50,000 houses have to be built in Rotterdam, 200,000 in the entire region. Public transport is also crucial in the climate transition. This year we will commission 42 emission-free buses. Then 40 percent of our buses will be climate neutral. You would expect more certainty from the government to maintain the service provision in 2023 and 2024 as well. That is now missing.”
Cutting back is pointless, says Unck. “We will soon need the people and equipment of today again. In view of the port, the government should not let go of public transport.”
He has a plan ready for the moment when passenger numbers will lag behind in 2023 and the government will no longer offer help. “Then we will have 30 percent fewer buses running, 20 percent fewer trams and 5 percent fewer metros. That way we can just close the gap. But then you lose travelers. And then you end up in a vicious circle and you have to cut even harder. You don’t want to end up in that situation.”
According to Unck, scaling down will take at least nine months. It now makes the uncertainty for 2023 great. Are RET employees concerned? “It’s starting to itch.”
hyper peak
It is difficult to predict when the number of travelers will return to the level of 2019. Infrastructure and Water Management points out research by its own Knowledge Institute for Mobility† According to that forecast, from June last year (before omikron), public transport will be back at 97 percent of its pre-pandemic level by 2023. The carriers are fighting that and are thinking more about 2024 or 2025.
During the corona crisis, the call was regularly made to travel smarter in the morning rush after all the lockdowns and restrictions. Spread out more, start later at work or school, email and video conferencing at home first. That would help the carriers in their approach to the ‘hyper peak’. Fewer peak hours means that they have to have less staff and equipment, which means that the fixed costs are lower. “Corona was the ideal testing ground for spreading the peak traffic,” says Unck. “But that failed. We haven’t seen the real spread we were hoping for yet. The government should have more control over that.”