Until the first quarter of 2020, many people in the Netherlands used our trains almost every day. And even while passenger numbers have plummeted, our social impact remains huge. This is reflected in areas such as mobility, safety, the environment and our expenditure. We present a transparent picture of our social impact by expressing our positive and negative socio-economic and environmental effects in euros. In this chapter we have tried to do so as objectively as possible, and to express some of those effects in monetary terms.
In a nutshell
In 2020, passengers travelled over 8 billion kilometres by train. This is considerably less than in 2019. The drop in kilometres travelled has also reduced the positive impact of NS-generated mobility. At the same time, the negative impact has also decreased as people spent less time travelling and the environmental impacts of first- and last-mile transport have diminished. On balance, NS's positive social impact amounted to €2,146 million in 2020 (compared with €3,250 million in 2019).
As in previous years, rail travel had only a very small impact on the environment compared with travel by car. However, the overall positive impact of rail as opposed to car travel decreased in 2020, caused by the drop in passenger-kilometres compared with 2019.
Social impact of NS
Social impact of NS | Impact in 2020 | % relative to 2019 | % relative to 2014 | Impact compared with cars | % relative to 2019 | % relative to 2014 | |
(in € million) | (in € million) | (in € million) | (in € million) | (in € million) | (in € million) | ||
mobility | 3,616 | -56% | -49% | n/a | |||
expenditure | 1,377 | 1% | 11% | n/a | |||
training | 11 | -15% | 15% | n/a | |||
journey time | -2,722 | -55% | -47% | n/a | |||
environment | -53 | -31% | -63% | € 137 | -55% | -41% | |
health and safety | -84 | -75% | n/a | € 278 | -56% | -49% | |
Total | 2,145 |
For further information about the terminology, the principles applied and the valuations and sources used, consult the NS 2020 Handbook on socio-economic impact analysis (only available in Dutch).