Editing Transport in the Netherlands (section)

===Future developments===
On the initiative of two European parties: [[RailNetEurope]] and [[Forum Train Europe]], a project called "Redesign of the International Timetabling Process (TTR)" should help to harmonise planning freight- and passenger trains across Europe, to optimize usage of existing rail tracks. Currently, almost all freight trains (96%) deviate from their original schedule, due to the dynamic nature of cargo transport. The new TTR must facilitate ProRail to let unscheduled freight trains run more easily, without requiring complex shifting in the regular passenger train timetables.<ref name=SpoorPro/> As of 2020, timetables will be detailed to tenths of minutes (six second units), instead of whole minutes, to further optimise planning.<ref name=SpoorPro/>

In the long term, significant capacity gains could only be achieved by adding more rail tracks, ''or'' transforming large portions of the Dutch railway system to run more like a metro / subway system, which could support up to 24 to 30 trains per hour on the busiest lines. This would however require a structural disentanglement of the current situation, in which trains, train drivers and conductors all have their own work schedules, following the Japanese model.<ref name=SpoorPro2>{{cite web |url=https://www.spoorpro.nl/management/2018/08/14/nederland-presteert-even-goed-als-japan-bij-versimpelen-spoornetwerk/ |title=Nederland kan even goed presteren als Japan bij versimpelen spoornetwerk |language=nl |trans-title=Netherlands can perform as well as Japan upon simplification of rail systems |last=van Gompel |first=Marieke |date=14 August 2018 |website=SpoorPro (Trade magazine for the Rail Sector) |publisher=[[ProMedia Group]] |access-date=22 August 2018 }}</ref> However, at the moment there are no real plans for such steps.<ref name=SpoorPro/>