Difficult choices must be made in public transport in Drenthe. Together with the province of Groningen, according to travelers’ organization Rover, a cut is 11 million euros on the role. “With these plans we are really put in time years ago,” says Freek Bos, director of Rover.
A total of 335 million euros will be cut on public transport. More than one hundred million is deposited with large cities in the Randstad, the other 225 million is being reduced to public transport for students, which lies with the Ministry of Education. “But there is no separate public transport network for students, so it will also be with other travelers. There is less money for the entire system,” explains Erwin Stoker from OV agency Groningen-Drenthe.
The piggy bank for the OV agency Groningen Drenthe is starting to get pretty empty. Before 2025, 3.5 million had to be removed from the reserves and the chance that there will be the case again in 2026 seems to be high. “This is not sustainable in the long term,” says deputy Henk Jumelet (CDA). “We have been working on a lobby here for a long time, but that is not a success so far.”
Next week, the OV agency Groningen Drenthe will present the budget for 2026 to the province. For the time being, the agency is also based on a cut of around 11 million, but the exact amount will be announced next week.
Travelers association Rover has outlined four scenarios what the consequences of these cuts can be. Although these options do not paint the full picture, for example, because, for example, bus transport and not trains are not taken into account, it does give Stoker a picture of which way it can go.
In the four scenarios, Rover shows that, for example, scraping half of all bus rides on Saturday and Sunday is an option to cut 11 million euros. The cut -back of bus transport after 7 pm is also seen as a possibility.
In recent years, the number of travelers traveling through Drenthe has risen in recent years in recent years. “On Saturday and Sunday, more people go by bus than ever was the case,” says Stoker. According to him, the final destination of these journeys is for the most part recreational, such as walking or a visit to a city or village.
“Public transport was finally back on after Corona, so these plans are extra sad,” explains Willbers of Rover-Drenthe. “Compared to abroad, public transport in the Netherlands is already very expensive. It must be a worthy alternative to the car, but it will not be that way.”