Last month, 87.9 percent of domestic passenger trains arrived in Brussels or at the terminal station on time or with a delay of up to six minutes. The trains therefore ran less punctually than in March last year (89.9 percent), but more punctually than in February 2023 (86.2 percent).
This punctuality figure does not take into account the 3,999 trains (4 percent) that were wholly or partially canceled in March. When those canceled trains are included, the punctuality drops to 85.1 percent.
Several incidents pushed the punctuality rate down in March. For example, track runners at Gent-Sint-Pieters station on 30 March led to a total of 4,391 minutes of delays and 79 canceled trains. A personal accident in Ruisbroek on 6 March also led to major nuisance.
Train punctuality fell below 90 percent last year for the first time since 2018. In the new management contracts of Infrabel and the NMBS railway company, punctuality is one of the criteria on which part of the financing depends.