Figures shared by NS with De Telegraaf in anticipation of the 2021 annual report show that these incidents concern such incidents as threatening an employee (277), physical violence (191), unruly (125), spitting (124), threats with weapon (25) and assault (2). In addition, 186 NS members were injured as a result of aggression during an arrest.
Irritable
“We see that some of the travelers in this corona time are irritable much faster and react hot-tempered to something they do not like. It is a response that fits in with a trend that we see more broadly in society,” says Eelco van Asch, who is responsible for social safety within the Board of Directors of NS.
In 2021 there were also 2300 reports of aggression incidents between travelers, which is 20% more than in 2020. In addition, since the last months of the year, the problem of nuisance causes in a number of specific places, such as Zwolle station and the route between Eindhoven-Weert, where ‘safe migrants’ cause a lot of problems.
In order to better tackle aggression on and around the railways, NS wants Safety & Service (V&S) employees to be allowed to check the identity of travelers themselves. Now these employees – with boa authority – have to detain suspicious persons and wait for the police, who then determine the name, address and place of residence.
Van Asch: “Our security staff ask for police deployment about 12,000 times a year. That is always honored, but you understand that agents also have other priorities. For example, if a robbery has just been committed, our people will have to wait a while and a situation can escalate. It is therefore very important to know who you have in front of you as soon as possible. Hence our request to the Ministry of Justice and Security to extend our powers.”
Brussels
“We also want V&S personnel to be able to act across the border on the international Intercity between Amsterdam and Brussels. We would like to meet with all parties, such as ministries, police and transporters, in the short term to jointly tackle the problems surrounding Zwolle, Eindhoven/Weert and the Intercity to Brussels.”
The NS boss says that more than 600,000 Dutch people traveled by train every day last year and expects that after corona there will be around a million again.
The expectation is that NS employees with boa authority will have to take action more often. In 2021 this happened more than three million times; 500,000 times more often than a year earlier.