NS can promote safety within society by offering safe transport and a safe environment for passengers and staff. At NS, we are working on occupational safety, personal safety and safe travel.

In terms of the occupational safety of our staff, NS is working on preventing physical or mental harm to our employees, for instance as a result of unsafe working conditions, which can mean they are unable to work (or not able to work full-time) or may need care.

Safety - personal and at work

The social costs of occupational safety were about €1 million last year, as in 2015. NS took further steps in 2016 to reduce unsafe working conditions, for instance through risk assessment and evaluation (RAE) reports and by encouraging staff to report unsafe situations.

As regards personal safety, NS has paid particular attention since 2015 to preventing aggression against staff and passengers. A range of measures were taken, in cooperation with our partners. We want to improve personal safety by deploying extra staff and a number of camera systems, and reducing the numbers of fare dodgers by bringing forward the planned installation of access gates at stations, as well as through staff training courses. Despite the measures, there were more reported incidents of aggression against our staff, in part because we are encouraging staff to always report incidents. Fortunately the number of cases involving injuries fell, as a result of which the costs of aggression by passengers against staff were about €1 million in 2016, which is less than in 2015.

To provide safe travel, NS is working with its partners on preventing collisions and derailments or unsafe situations at the stations. There were only three incidents with injuries in 2016, compared with 30 in 2015. Unfortunately, in October an Intercity train hit a person working on the track at night, with fatal consequences. That increased the social costs for rail travel safety by €6 million (€3 million in 2015). To further improve safe travel, we are continuing to focus on safety instructions and open communication with staff about improvements. NS is also working with ProRail and other carriers on reducing the number of unsafe situations.
The number of traffic accidents in journeys prior and subsequent to the train journey and the impact of these accidents was much higher; the figure was approximately €106 million (€108 million in 2015, after recalculations). Travelling by train is relatively safe compared to transport by car. The positive impact resulting from accidents that are avoided because of people actively choosing the train was only calculated for the ‘elective passengers’. The social benefits of safe transport by train were approximately €601 million in 2016 (€586 million in 2015, following recalculation).

Safe journeys

Safe journeys by car