Europe is weathering a geopolitical storm. That means that rail has suddenly become a key topic in questions of defence. NATO countries are expected to have their infrastructure in order. The Netherlands has assessed its railway network and concludes: it needs a different way of thinking about rail.
At the request of State Secretary for Public Transport and the Environment Thierry Aartsen, the Dutch Consultation Body for the Physical Environment (OFL) and infrastructure manager ProRail set out to identify the vulnerabilities in the Dutch railway network.
The outcome of the assessment is twofold: First, the Netherlands needs to rethink its rail strategy, and from that follows point number two: money (600 million euros in investments to be precise).
Dutch rail policy has long focused on efficiency and punctuality, which has served its purpose well. However, times are changing and so are the needs of the railways. Sabotage, cyber attacks and military transportation are the new themes that need to be dealt with.
From prevention to recovery
“Current policy assumes incidental, non-intentional disruptions due to, for example, bad weather. That assumption is a thing of the past”, the Dutch infrastructure ministry says. State Secretary Aartsen also highlighted that the Netherlands needs to move beyond just prevention, but also work on “absorption” and “recovery”.
“A targeted disruption can have a large impact on the network”, the OFL report says. A case in point was the large-scale rail disruption during the NATO summit in the Hague, although an official cause has not yet been established. During complex disruptions, solutions depend on the knowledge of “small groups of experts”, meaning that solutions can take a long time if the experts are unavailable. Interesting to know is that the NATO summit rail disruption prompted the state secretary to commission the investigation in question.
Bureaucracy and infrastructure
A grim picture emerges when looking at the Dutch readiness for military transportation. RailFreight.com’s sister publication SpoorPro attended the presentation of the OFL report at a Dutch military base, and writes: “Aartsen’s face was filled with astonishment when he heard from a military transport specialist that it currently takes 28 days to enter Germany with military equipment.” This does not have so much to do with infrastructure as it does with bureaucracy, as it is the red tape (in both countries) that is keeping trains on one side of the border.
But when looking at hard infrastructure, things are also far from perfect. For example, military trains may require adjacent rails to remain unoccupied, so they can interrupt regular civilian traffic for hours. Military transportation would be highly disruptive to other forms of traffic on the already congested Dutch railways.
The OFL report issues seven policy recommendations, in short:
- Increasing the security level of crucial systems, infrastructure, and stations
- Investing in train traffic continuity
- Investing in more capacity for military mobility
- Intently paying attention to support from society
- Safeguarding adequate prioritisation of trains
- Strengthening the structural importance of resilience within ProRail
- Guaranteeing sufficient personnel and material supplies
In a letter to parliament, State Secretary Aartsen says that the Netherlands needs to improve its railways in various ways for military mobility purposes: more capacity in port areas, facilitating 740-metre trains, efficient border crossings and electrification of strategic routes.
Dutch rail freight association RailGood sees an opportunity for the government to meet the demands of the civilian rail freight sector through military-related plans. After all, 740-metre trains, more capacity for freight, electrification and, RailGood adds, the implementation of ERTMS for interoperability have long been on the sector’s wishlist.