Fifth fewer travelers in the country’s busiest train stations on weekdays | Interior

The decrease is greatest for Brussels-North station, a station par excellence for commuters. In 2019, this was still the busiest station in the country, with an average of almost 63,800 departing travelers on weekdays. But in October of last year, 48,125 travelers were counted, a quarter less.

Brussels-South, where more leisure travelers pass through, among other things, the high-speed trains, was the busiest station in the most recent count. 50,746 departing travelers were counted on weekdays, compared to almost 60,000 in 2019 (-15 percent). Brussels-Central went from just over 60,700 departing travelers in 2019 to 49,476 at the most recent count (-18 percent).

Gent-Sint-Pieters remains the busiest non-Brussels train station. An average of 48,138 departing travelers were counted on a weekday (compared to more than 55,000 in 2019). This is followed by Leuven (31,877) and Antwerp-Central (31,347). In Wallonia, Namur is the busiest station, with an average of 21,074 departing passengers counted on a weekday.

NMBS confirms that commuter traffic by train is not yet at the level of 2019. “In October last year we were at about 90 percent, and that percentage has remained almost stable since then,” said NMBS spokesman Dimitri Temmerman. Last week, the railway company launched a flexible subscription for employees who work from home a few days a week.

“We do notice that the train remains attractive for leisure traffic,” adds Temmerman. “During the weekends, the number of travelers is regularly above the level of 2019.”

The latter is also evident from the passenger counts. Brussels-South is also the busiest station in the country at weekends, with 29,056 passengers boarding on Saturday and 27,814 on Sunday. That is more than in 2019; on Sunday, for example, there were about 24,500.

In addition to the busiest stations, the passenger counts also provide insight into the least used stops in the country. For example, the tables show 25 stations where less than 50 boarding passengers were counted on weekdays. As with the previous count, Hourpes in Hainaut is at the very bottom, with 7 departing travelers on weekdays. From Flanders, the East Flemish stations of Aalst-Kerrebroek (22), Vijfhuizen (23) and Bambrugge (31) are in this list.

In the week there were still about twenty stations with few travelers that might be closed in the context of the transport plan 2023-2036. But Mobility Minister Georges Gilkinet (Ecolo) rejected that idea again on Tuesday. “The economic gains put forward by the SNCB seem meager, if not anecdotal, especially when compared to the negative impact for travelers who can no longer take a train from the nearest station, especially in rural areas,” he said. in the Parliamentary Committee on Mobility.

The board of directors of the NMBS will consider the transport plan 2023-2026 on Friday. There is an offer on the table to expand the offer with more than 2,000 extra trains per week, according to Gilkinet. This should help to achieve the target of attracting 30 percent more train passengers in ten years’ time.

The passenger counts were carried out at the beginning of October 2022. The necessary reservations must be made with the figures. “These counts are the result of a short observation over time, which inevitably implies a margin of error, which in some cases can be significant,” it reads. For example, the figures also do not allow a distinction to be made between travelers who go to the station and travelers who have to catch a connection (they are therefore counted twice). Counting with automated technologies is being considered, but “manual counting offers the best value for money to date”