And again the trains stopped this week. On Tuesday there was first a malfunction around Schiphol due to a fire in cables along the rails, where the police said they took a crime into account, possibly in connection with the NATO summit. On Wednesday, considerably fewer trains could run to and from the airport, this time through a signaling. Elsewhere in the Randstad, there were trajectories impassable due to a exchange failure, a damaged railway bridge and a defective overhead line. In the meantime, road traffic was also seriously hindered because roads around The Hague were closed due to the NATO summit.
A bad week for commuters. Yet the great chaos was not forthcoming that could have broke out in the country. What saved is that the government had called on everyone in advance to work at home as much as possible this week and to avoid the Randstad. That was not possible for everyone, but those who could stay away had responded to the advice.
Trains that still drove among the big cities in the Randstad were sometimes surprisingly empty during peak hours. It also remained relatively quiet on the roads. According to the ANWB, there were even fewer daily traffic jams than normal. Rijkswaterstaat complimented road users on X: “Thanks to your adapted travel behavior during the NATO summit, long traffic jams on the motorways have been out so far. Thank you for that!”
Of course there will have been plenty of people who were nuisance, but Grosso Modo was strikingly mildly responded to all the disturbances and people easily adapted to people.
Perhaps it is because the Netherlands has been a bit of Murw in recent weeks due to the disruption of train traffic, due to the strikes of the NS staff. But it also has to do with the flexibility that society has received through the possibility of working from home, an achievement that came in handy in a week when it came in handy.
Research by the CNV trade union among 1,200 home workers only showed last month that employers became less enthusiastic about this way of working. One in three respondents said they now had less freedom to work at home than two years ago. Since the coronation time, two to three days a week had come to the office for many employees more or less the norm. That is now moving back to three to four days a week.
On the one hand, it is understandable that employers attach that their employees regularly appear in the office. Working together asks that people also physically meet each other from time to time; That is good for the team spirit and mutual understanding and labor productivity.
It seems wise if employers and employees together follow a middle ground, and keep talking about the right balance. Not only do individual companies and employees benefit from this, the entire country will benefit if working from home can be used at times when a little more flexibility is needed in mobility. Working from home is a useful means to use at times, but it is not allowed, no matter how tempting, to be seen as a solution for persistent mobility problems in the Netherlands in public transport and on the highway.